FINE OF £50 IMPOSED

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24640, 9 August 1945, Page 3

FINE OF £SO IMPOSED

ILLEGAL SALE OF WATCH “The penalties are high, but they have to be high to be a sufficient deterrent. This is not a big establishment: at the same time it is an offence which must be checked," said Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, in imposing a fine of £SO on Jefferies (Jewellers), Ltd., for a breach of the Control of Prices Emergency Regulations. Payment of costs and solicitor's fee was ordered. The charge against the defendant company (Mr E. A. Lee) was one of selling (to L. S. Jones) a watch while the Prohibition of the Sale of Declared Goods Notice was still m force and when the Price Tribunal had not made a price order approving of a selling price. Mr J. D. Hutchison appeared for the prosecution. Lawrence Stanley Jones, another sailor, and two price inspectors were called as witnesses. It was claimed that Jones had been sold a women’s gold wristlet watch for £ls 15s, collecting later a five-year guarantee, signed by an assistant at the firm, and that no approval had been given for the sale of such a watch. , , The defence claimed that such a sale had not been made by this firm, and that this was supported by the cash records and stock sheets. It was suggested that guarantees such as that produced were given for watches reconditioned by the firm but purchased elsewhere. The principal witnesses were Jeff Donald Charles Jefferies and Phyllis Heney (assistant). “Generally,” said the Magistrate, this case resolves into a contest between the evidence for the prosecution and for the defence, and I have no doubt in my mind, none at all. in preferring the evidence of Jones to that of the defence. Jones comes here and gives a detailed and circumstantial account of his visit to Christchurch, to the shop, his purchase, and of his visit later and of the circumstances of the guarantee. He produces that very guarantee signed by a servant of the defendant company, who, though not asked, did not deny that it was her signature. His story is very strong, supported by documentary evidence, and is a story, not shaken by cross-examination, which I believe.” The Magistrate said that on the other hand a certain amount of fairly negative evidence was tendered on behalf of the defendant company—evidence about stock, recording of sales, and guarantees. A faint effort had been made, suggesting that the contract might have been given in a repair proposition. He had not been at all impressed by the evidence given bv Jefferies or the manner in which It was given. Nor had Miss Heney, who signed the guarantee, been able to give much evidence to assist. To his mind, the guarantee was one given for a sale, the actual wording including this day sold to . ” The evidence could scarcely be stronger, and the guarantee was not explained away. Whatever weight might be given to records of sales, he added, they would be of little use in that any person determined on illicit sales need not enter the sales.