PRANK AT LYTTELTON WITH FLAGS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27055, 2 June 1953, Page 3

PRANK AT LYTTELTON WITH FLAGS

TWO MEN FINED £5 EACH Arrested after they had substituted the Russian flag for two flags being flown from the premises of a shipping flrm at Lyttelton on Saturday night, Neil Arrow, aged 29, a commercial artist, and Roland James Ellis, aged 25, a fitter engineer, appeared in the. Magistrate’s Court at Lyttelton yesterday before MesSrs W. T. Lester, J.P., and F. H. Heal, J.P. They pleaded guilty to being rogues and vagabonds in that they were found by night, without lawful excuse, on the premises of Forbes, Ltd., Lyttelton, and not guilty to stealing two flags, valued at £lO, the property of Kinsey and Company, Ltd. Senior-Sergeant J. L. Graham said that Constable G. S. Harrington found the two men on the roof of the premises of Forbes, Ltd., in Norwich quay. He saw them throw something away. The constable arrested them. The police found the two flags, and also discovered that a small replica of the Russian flag was flying from the flagstaff of Kinsey and Company’s building. Giving evidence, Constable Harrington said that at 8.40 p.m. on Saturday he climbed to the roof of Forbes, Ltd. The two men on the roof tried to make off, but he called to them to stop or he would shoot. They stopped, ana he saw them throw something away. At the police station they said they had changed the flags for a joke. They intended to hang flags taken from Kinsey and Company, Ltd. from one of the flood-lit pylons in the railway yard. Arrow told the Court that he and Ellis had come from the boat harbour in a yacht to see the Lyttelton decorations. The idea to change the flags was spontaneous, and there was no sinister intention. He had no Communist leanings and was willing to take the oath of allegiance to the British Constitution if necessary. He had made the flag about eight years ago for a joke among yachtsman. It was one of many of different nations which he had in his yacht for decorating the boat. They intended to tie the other flags at the top of the Pylon. , „■ . The Bench said that on the first charge the men would be convicted and each fined £5. They would be given the benefit of the doubt on the second charge and would be convicted and discharged.