REFUSAL TO GIVE EVIDENCE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29083, 21 December 1959, Page 10

REFUSAL TO GIVE EVIDENCE

Magistrate’s Criticism Of Complainants (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 20. Criticism of persons who called the police, put the Courts to trouble, then later refused to give evidence was expressed by Mr M. E. Scully, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Wellington. He was dismissing a charge against Ulf - Christensen, aged 26, painter, of assaulting Jozef Mazur. When Mazur was called he re-

fused to give evidence, as did him wife, Jadwiga Theresa Mazur. Constable Barry Ronald Henderson was then sworn. The Magistrate: I take it you want to give evidence? Constable Henderson: Yes. Constable Henderson said he had gone to Mazur’s home and found Mazur there with Christensen. Mazur had a swollen and cut lip. Mazur said Christensen had hit him when he (Mazur) had tried to intervene in an altercation with someone else. Mr R. Stacey, for Christensen, submitted there was no case. Dismissing the charge, Mr Scully told Christensen he should be the last person to get involved in fisticuffs. The Magistrate said it was the second case in two days in which complainants had refused to give evidence. “If I were able to order these people who put the Courts and police to so much trouble to pay costs on the highest scale I would do so. The Courts and the police have enough to do without these people ringing for help and then not doing anything. “The police would be almost right in refusing to help if these people again call on them for assistance.”