BUTCHER FINED

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24749, 14 December 1945, Page 3

BUTCHER FINED

* — RATIONING BREACHES ■' The Press ” Special Service WELLINGTON, December 13. A butcher was fined in the Magistrate’s Court, Pahiatua, to-day, for breaches of the Rationing Emergency Regulations. It was the first time that a butcher who kills at his own slaughterhouse to supply his own shop has been convicted for the particular offences. The defendant was Hugh Gibson Kirby-Taylor, trading as A. Harrison and Company, retail butchers. For making material omissions in certificates furnished to the Rationing Controller he was fined £25. For supplying meat without an authority or permit he was fined £lO. He was convicted without penalty for acquiring meat without authority. He pleaded guilty to the charges. For the prosecution it was explained that the defendant operated a rural slaughterhouse, and killed meat for sale exclusively in his own shop. His returns to the Department of Agriculture showed a greater amount of meat killed than was recorded in his returns to the Rationing Controller. Between April 20 and July 24 he killed 13,0001b more than was accounted for to the Rationing Controller. Mr K. N. Struthers. for the defendant, said the offences were committed inadv.ei*J,ently through ignorance, shortage of staff, and sickness in the family. *