HOTEL LICENSEE CHARGED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 84, 10 April 1929, Page 9

HOTEL LICENSEE CHARGED.

illegal suppying alleged, j CONFLICTING EVIDENCE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) THAMES, Tuesday. George H. Pearson, licensee of the Puriri Hotel, was charged to-day with supplying an intoxicated person with liquor. Sergeant Powell stated that a man named William Pringle, after spending over £.5 in the course of a short stay at the hotel, had been found lying in an Unconscious condition in a patch of scrub beside his swag and two bottles of beer. Pringle, in evidence, said that at 2 a.m. on a Sunday he went into a fit of tlecplessncss to a bathroom in the hotel and drank half a bottle of methylated spirits. He knew nothing more until awakening in the Thames Hospital about 15 hours later, although he remembered voices as he was lifted into the car which eonveyed him there. , Mrg. G. Pearson, wife of the licensee, Mid that at Pringle's earnest entreaty •he supplied him with a glass of stout, for which no charge was made. N. H. Pearson, taxi-driver, son of the licensee, eaid he motored Pringle to tVharepoa at 10.30 a.m. on the Sunday. Nearing the journey's end Pringle iniisted on getting out of the car and crawling under a fence. Witness left him. He had no beer with him at that time. Witness, cross-examined by Sergeant Rowell, later admitted that he had told the police that Pringle carried two bottles of beer. After a sharp comment on the evidence of the last witness. Mr. F. W. Piatt#, S.M., reserved hia decision.