A CONVICTION QUASHED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22436, 24 June 1938, Page 9

A CONVICTION QUASHED

Appeal in Licensing Case MAGISTRATE’S DECISION REVERSED A conviction entered against a publican in the Magistrate’s Court in November was .quashed by his Honour Mr Justice Northcroft, after hearing an appeal in the Supreme Court yesterday. The successful appellant was James Haywood Franks, licensee of the Prince of Wales Hotel, for whom Mr Roy Twyneham appeared. In November last year, it was set out, Franks had been convicted and fined £6 for keeping open his hotel for the sale of liquor after hours. Grounds for the appeal in law, Mr Twyneham said, were that there had been no evidence in the lotver Court hearing on which he could have been convicted. Traversing the evidence —that- of a man seen leaving the hotel with beer in possession and who admitted buying it in the hotel, that of a policeman who said he sOW the see tir man out of the hotel, and that of the licensee himself who said he had sold liquor' to no one, nor given authority for anvope to sell it—Mr Twyneham argued that Frank* should not pave been convicted. Instead' of the inference being taken that' the hotel had been open, of which he claimed there was no proof in the evidence, should not the licensee have been given the benefit of the reasonable doUbt that did exist? The onus Was on the Crown to prove its ease, not on the defence to disprove an inference of guilt. Mr A. W. Brown! who appeared for the Police Department, argued that on the evidence there was a season-

able inference to be drawn that the premises were open. His Honour asked if there was any proof in the Magistrate's notes on the facts that the man who bought the liquor was a boarder. If he had been a boarder, the sale would not have been unlawful. He could hot deal in the appeal with an inference the Magistrate might have taken from the evidence that the man was not a boarder, but ■vyas concerned only with the facts as noted —and the notes did not say the man was not a‘ bparder. Moreover, if the door was open Or unlocked so that a' man could come in, was that unreasonable if the house was full of boarders. If that was so what would be the position of the hotels in Cathedral square, whose front doors were open after hours? Mr Brown admitted that the mere fact that a door was open could not be used to prove that the hotel was open for the sale of liquor. However, the law also dealt with the egress of persons from licensed premises' after hours. However, he admitted that there was no proof on the facts that the man leaving the hotel was a boarder. , The case was stood down so thatfurther authorities might be called by the defehce, but after brief legal argument when it was called again, his Honour said that without any other comment he would say there was not justification for the conviction, which therefore would be quashed.