MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25637, 28 October 1948, Page 3

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

WEDNESDAY (Before Mr F. F. Reid, S.M.) MILK BELOW STANDARD Elizabeth McKenzie was fined £2 and ordered to pay solicitor’s fee £1 Is for selling pasteurised milk deficient in but-ter-fat content. SHIP DESERTION George Salisbury Simm (Mr R. Twyneham) was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour on a charge of desertion from the overseas ship Corinthic at Wellington on October 16. Mr Twyneham said accused, who had been assistant-butcher in the Corinthic, had deserted at Wellington and had since been employed in a butchery business in Christchurch. His employer was desperately short of labour. The journeyman butcher “just didn’t exist to-day.” This was not the ordinary case of desertion where an unskilled man came to New Zealand prepared to take anything. Practically -all his client’s wages had been handed back to his employer to put in a fund to bring out his wife and child, who were leading a poor existence in England and had lived in eight separate rooms in 18 months. He suggested the imposition of a substantial fine instead of the usual term of imprisonment. The Magistrate said accused knew quite well the penalty for desertion. Had legislation, introduced a month ago, been passed accused would have been imprisoned for a long term. Ship desertion was regarded as a serious offence. “You had no consideration for your shipping employers nor much consideration for your wife and child in leaving therfi to battle along alone in England,” said the Magistrate.

UNLICENSED RADIO SETS The following penalties were imposed on persons found operating unlicensed radio sets:—Richard Kenneth Arrowsmith, ss; Allister Francis Ford. 30s; Herbert William Harris, 20s; Alec Leighton McMillan, costs only; Alfred Edward Charles Roberts, 10s; William Frederick Robinson, costs only; Raymond John Walker, 15s.