MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27403, 16 July 1954, Page 9

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

THURSDAY (Before Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M.) ILLEGAL TICKETS Arthur Raymond Hays, aged 29, a barman-porter, was fined £5 for selling illegal totalisator tickets on July 8. He pleaded guilty to the charge. REMANDED Eric Douglas Lakey, aged 24, a joiner (Mr W. E. Brown) was remanded to July 22 on a charge that on May 27 he stole a car fog lamp valued at £4 4s 6d, the property of Charles Walter Kent Johnston. Charged with stealing a quantity of carpenter’s tools, of a total value of £29, the property of Colin William Wiles, Desmond Ernest Le Gros, aged

30, a carpenter (Mr R. Twyneham) was remanded to July 22. Bail was renewed. NAMES SUPPRESSED Two men whose names were ordered not to be published in the meantime, pleaded guilty to stealing coal valued at £l4. They were remanded to July 22 for sentence. A report is to be obtained from the Probation Officer. Messrs A. Hearn and B. J. Drake - appeared for accused. Three youths who had previously pleaded guilty to a joint charge of the theft of motor-cycle clothing, were each fined £5. Their names were

suppressed. They were represented by Mr B. McClelland. UNLAWFULLY PROCURED LIQUOR Stanley Clare Wright was fined £2 for procuring liquor while prohibited. FINED FOR ASSAULT “You would be wise to keep your hands to yourself in future,” said the Magistrate, when he fined Frank Schuster £4 for assaulting Leslie Williams on May 22. He pleaded guilty to. the charge. Senior-Sergeant A. B. Collinge said that at 9.20 p.m., a constable on his beat in Cashel street found a man lying on the footpath. He was taken to the Christchurch Public Hospital. On inquiry it was found that a taxi had pulled up outside Tattersail’s Hotel and four men got out. When they could not get admission to the hotel, an argument developed and it culminated in Williams being struck by Schuster. On May 24 accused was convicted and fined £3 for using obscene language at a dance. IMPRISONMENT FOR THEFT

“You have a bad list here, and it is getting worse. Society has to be protected,” said the Magistrate, when Owen Leslie Pugh, aged 32 (Mr B. McClelland) appeared for sentence. He had previously pleaded guilty to four charges of breaking and entering and theft, and one of attempted breaking and entering. He (Pugh) was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour on each of the four charges, and six months’ imprisonment with hard labour on the other charge, the terms to be concurrent

Mr McClelland said Pugh was not altogether bad and he would do much better if he stopped drifting. He had

already been in custody for a month or six weeks while awaiting the hearing. LICENSING BREACHES Thomas Cunningham Malcolm, licensee of McKendry’s Hotel, was convicted and fined £2 for selling liquor after hours on May 23. Malcolm, represented by Mr W. F. Brown, pleaded not guilty to the charge. Sergeant R. Turnbull said he and Constable Pipe visited the hotel shortly before noon on Sunday, May 23. In the bar were” six people, but one of them was a lodger with two guests. One man, Donald Leslie Tilley said he was a friend of the barman who had asked him to the hotel for lunch. The barman had shouted him several beers. At the far end of the bar were a man and wonjan. They had glasses in front of them containing what looked like.beer and money was on the counter in front of them. Later when he looked, the liquor in the glasses had disappeared, as had the money. These two, John Ainsley Sparrow and Allison Briscoe Sparrow, said they were friends of the licensee. They had called to see the licensee, but were told he was out and they decided to wait for him in the bar.

Constable Pipe gave similar evidence.

Mr Brown said the licensee had been in the trade for more than 20 years. In Scotland he was the licensee of several hotels and a conviction had never been entered against his name. He submitted there was nothirig sinister in what the police found in the bar. There were two friends of the licensee and one of the barman. Sparrow denied having purchased liquor or having had liquor. Referring to the liquor given to Tilley, Mr Brown submitted that unless there was a sale, and there was no evidence of a sale, the licensee was not liable for his servant shouting for a man. It was a technical breach by the licensee and nothing else. Evidence was given for the defence by Malcolm and Sparrow. The Magistrate said he had sympathy for the licensee in this case because he believed his evidence that up to this time he had had a clear record. He could not call the sergeant and the constable liars, however, and their evidence had to be accepted. Tilley and John Sparrow and Allison Sparrow were each convicted and fined £1 for being on licensed premises after hours, and Lester Herbert Slade, the barman, was fined. £5 on a charge that being a person other than the licensee, he supplied liquor after hours. CIVIL CASES (Before Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M.) POSSESSION ORDER The legal question of competing hardships arose only so long as the rent was paid, said the Magistrate in issuing an order for possession in favour of C. A. Stiles (Mr G. X P. Purnell) against W. Davey and Mrs Davey (Mr R. C. Thornton), of the Labour Department. No warrant is to be issued provided the defendants pay £lO immediately and subsequent instalments of 4s a week toward a total of £34 10s lid arrears in rent. In addition the current rent of 16s a week is to be paid regularly. Mr Purnell said that the tenants had received seven notices to quit at various times and after each notice new promises had been made and the tenancy had continued. The house was very old, he said, and the City Council had ruled that it was riot to be re-let at the expiration of the present tenancy. The section at 223 Springfield road was in a valuable situation and the owner was anxious to obtain vacant possession as it was suitable for the construction of a block of flats.

For the defendant, Mr Thornton said that Mr Davey had recently been sent to prison and Mrs Davey was occupying the house with three of their 10 children. The husband had been in gaol before, but Mrs Davey had on previous occasions brought, the rent up to date. The possibility of getting a transit house or a State Advances house was negligible, he said. The City Council regarded the family as a problem and the State Advances Corporation was very loath to give tenanacy to anyone who had a record of arrears in rent. “I realise that there will be great hardship, but it could not be the law that the landlord has to stand by for month after month without receiving rent,” said the Magistrate.

JUDGMENT SUMMONSES On judgment summonses, A. E. Halligan was ordered to pay the Christchurch Footwear Operatives Union £2 9s 6d, in default three days’ imprisonment; G. V. Kearns was ordered to pay Blackburne, Smith and Company, Ltd., <5 16s 6d, in default 17 days’ imprisonment; R. F. Finn was ordered to pay Blackburne, Smith and Company, Ltd., £92 19s 6d, in default three months’ imprisonment, warrant to bo suspended provided £2 a week is paid; R. E. MacFarlane was ordered to pay Direct Supply Company, Ltd., £2 7s, in- default three days’ imprisonment; Louis Delmonte was ordered to pay C. F. Cotter, Ltd., £3‘ Us 6d, in default four days’ imprisonment; F. C. Meikle was ordered to pay the Hampton Tyre Company £26 12s 3d, in default 28 days’ imprisonment, the warrant to be suspended provided 10s a week Is paid: C. McKay was ordered to pay A. C. Pash £23 7s 6d, in default 25 days’ imprisonment.

JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANT (Before Mr Leslie N. Ritchie, S.M.) Judgment for the defendant, Benjamin Rogal, was entered and no order made when Edgar Leonard Marshal Curtis sought an order for possesison of a dwelling in Hawker road. Marshland. Mr R. E. Wylie, for the plaintiff, said that Rogal was tenant in a hous? on a 21-acre property when Curtis bought it in 1951. The farm had been bought on a deed in trust for Curtis’s son, and it was proposed to farm it as a dairy farm with the son in residence. Mr Wylie said that an option on alternative accommodation had been obtained and Rogal had failed to avail himself of it. He also claimed that there was hardship on both Curtis senior and his son ,(as he had an interest in the property through the deed in trust), in that there would be a lack of supervision with a possible consequent loss of stock, impossibility of fitting a new cowshed with electricity and water except through the house, and inability to use a large , shed which defendant claimed was part of the property he had rented. For the defendant, Mr E. M. Malley said that no alternative accommodation was available at the present time, nor any indication that it would become available. The defendant had made an endeavour to obtain alternative accommodation. Rogal, a labourer, earning £lO a week, had with him in the house his wife and son. To the Magistrate, Rogal said that he would undertake to allow ’ Curtis the use of all the shed except that in which he housed his car, and would agree to an arrangement for the installation of elec-

tricity and water for the milking shed through the house. ‘‘To say the least, the conduct of the tenant in not making a greater^,effort to obtain other accommodation is represensible,” said the Magistrate in giving his decision. “I believe there is a moral duty on all tenants who have received notice from their landlords to make every effort to do so.” The hardship of the plaintiff and his son was largely of a financial nature, however, and did not equal that which would be placed on the defendant, his wife, and son if ordered, to vacate. |