"BLUNDERED."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 17

"BLUNDERED."

STRONG COMMENT.

APPEAL ALLOWED.

FACTORY ACT PROSECUTION,

Strong comment was made by Lord | Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice, in the King's Bench, London, on a decision by the Gloucester magistrates to dismiss an information preferred by an inspector of factories against millowners alleging that they had not fenced dangerous shafting.

Allowing the inspector's appeal, and remitting the case to the magistrates, Lord Hewa.rt said: "This appeal illustrates, for the hundredth time, the mischief which arises where a prosecution under the Factory Acts is conducted before a bench of lay magistrates.

"How long the system is to be continued is a question which may have to be gravely considered. We have in this ease the kind of blunder with which this court, to ray knowledge, has been dealing for 10 years. "In the factory there was a notice warning men against putting belts on moving tackle, but this was millgearing, and therefore the duty imposed by the Act was to fence it. The essential purpose of the section was ignored, and it is difficult to speak witli restraint, for here there was a shaft turning at 100 revolutions a minute, accessible to workmen who wished to replace a belt, and not fenced.

"Yet the justices have permitted themselves to accept the contention that the gearing was in such a condition, or of such construction, as to be safe as if it were fenced. Such a decision is at variance with the facts."

Mr. Justice dti Parcq said the magistrates had misunderstood the Act. despite the f-ict that they had many High Court decisions to assist them.