CONDUCT OF BALMORAL HOTEL

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23918, 9 April 1943, Page 3

CONDUCT OF BALMORAL HOTEL

♦ MAGISTRATE RESERVES DECISION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 6. The hearing of the charge against Sarah Anne Vangionl of permitting the Balmoral Private Hotel to be used as a house of ill-fame was concluded to-day, the Magistrate (Mr W. F. Stilwell) Intimating he would give his decision on Monday. Opening the case lor the defence, Mr C. H. Weston, K.C., said that the premises had to be regarded for the time being as the home of the occupants. That being so, the majority of the incidents seen by the police were innocent, but if the Court began with the assumption that the place was a brothel, then they were guilty incidents. The assumption that it was a boarding-house was not destroyed by the fact that some boarders were not innocent. Because a certain number misconducted themselves was no reason why all servicemen should be refused admission or why all premises to which they were admitted were to be regarded as brothels. There was no lounge or bar in the hotel, and the occupants, like thousands of others in Wellington, had to live and entertain in their bedrooms. He contended that the police evidence of misconduct by some boarders was insufficient to convert the place from a boarding-house to a brothel. The defendant said In evidence that she was unaware that the Incidents stated to have been observed by the police were going oa In the 'house.