PAPERS SERVED ON MINISTER

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26506, 22 August 1951, Page 6

PAPERS SERVED ON MINISTER

MRS BARNES SEEKS PROSECUTION

ACTION UNDER LAW OF LIBEL ACT

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 21. Mrs F. E. Barnes, wife of the president of the deregistered watersiders union (Mr H. Barnes), said when interviewed by telephone at Auckland to-night that she had served papers on the Minister in charge of Police (Mr W. H. Fortune) under the law of libel. Mrs Barnes said that this afternoon she went to an election meeting which Mr Fortune was addressing at Marlborough street, Auckland, and personally placed in his hands legal papers notifying him of the suit she was bringing against him. These papers, she said, contained notice that an application had been filed for leave to bring an action against him alleging criminal defamation under section 11 of the Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1910, the section under which her husband was charged in his recent trial. Mrs Barnes added that she had taken action as a Justice of the Peace, and also as a vice-president of the Auckland Combined Women’s Committee, which was comprised of women trade unionists and wives of trade unionists. It was formed in March last at a meeting attended by 400 women.

Mrs Barnes said that she had decided to take action against Mr Fortune because of a statement which she alleged he made at an election meeting held at Mount Eden on August 15, at which the Mayor of Mount Eden (Mr A. C. Johns) was chairman. She said that the application would be heard at the Auckland Magistrate’s Court at 10 a.m. to-morrow week.