DEFAULTERS GAOLED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 302, 22 December 1941, Page 3

DEFAULTERS GAOLED

DISOBEYED ORDERS

ROTORUA, Sunday. Charges of disobeying lawful orders were preferred against two inmates of the Strathmore defaulters' camp, before Mr. W. H. Freeman, S.M., yesterday. The accused. James Thomas Beswick, aged 27, and James Walter Corbett, aged 31, both of whom pleaded not guilty, were sentenced to two months' imprisonment A. V. McLennan, field overseer of the camp, said he had set out with a party of men to go to a job. The men wore heavy boots and other protection against wet weather although it was not raining. The men were instructed to go across a paddock. The two accused refused to cross the paddock, maintaining that the grass was wet. Others in the party, including Public Works employees, had made no objection. The camp supervisor, John A Duffy, said that Corbett had told him he had been given an unreasonable order to go through wet grass instead of travelling on a dry track. The conduct of Corbett had not been satisfactory while he was in the camp and he had just kept within the regulations. Accused definitely had a bad influence on others in camp.