TALE OF BROKEN BOTTLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 300, 20 December 1938, Page 18

TALE OF BROKEN BOTTLE.

j POLICE CHARGE FAILS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WHANGAREI, this day. Whether or not the entrance to a public hall was a "public place" was a point of law argued in the Magistrate's Court this morning before Mr. J. Morling, S.M. Mr. D. L. Ross defended a young postal employee, who was stated by the police to have thrown broken alass in a public place, namely, the Portland Hall. Constable C. Snow explained that he had been at the hall on the night of the Victory Ball. A few minutes before 1 a.m. he had seen defendant throw a beer bottle on to the concrete, where it broke. Defendant had later picked up the glass and thrown it away. Mr. Ross contended that as the glass was not actually thrown on to the roadway, but in the entrance to the hall, the concrete did not amount to a "public place." The bottle, he said, had not been deliberately thrown on the concrete. Defendant had thrown it to a friend, who had failed to catch it. "It was a silly sort of act," commented the magistrate. "He apparently realised it was a silly thing to do. There was nothing deliberate, and I am sure a caution will suffice." The ease was accordingly dismissed, without the legal argument being heard further.