Magistrate’s Court “WOULD RATHER GO TO GAOL THAN PAY FINE”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29382, 8 December 1960, Page 10

Magistrate’s Court “WOULD RATHER GO TO GAOL THAN PAY FINE”

“I’m sorry sir, I am not going to pay the fine. I’d rather go to gaoL” said Charles Edward Cullen, an electrician, to Mr A. p. Blair, SM., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday after he had been fined £2 on a charge of commencing electrical wiring work on August 8 without the permission of the Malvern Power Board. Cullen pleaded not guilty and conducted his own case. Mr I. C. J. Polson prosecuted. The Magistrate said it was not a bad offence of its kind as there was no great time lapse before he informed the -board.

Bernard John Harris, the engineer-secretary of the Mhlvern Electric Power Board, said Cullen had been engaged in wiring operations in the factoy of R. H. Hooper and Son at Kirwee. He had sept a letter to the board stating that the work had been completed. There was no explanation in the letter. A power line had been connected to a pole alongside the building by the board but not to the building itself. Cross-examined by Cullen, Harris was asked if he had visited the job before the alleged offence was committed and instructed that certain lines work be done. He would not answer the question. Cullen: You had full knowledge of the job before the offence was supposed to be committed?

Harris: I had no knowledge of who was going to do the wiring. To the Magistrate Harris said he knew that somebody was going to do the wiring. Harris refused to answer some of the questions put by Cullen as he said he considered the matters were not relevant. “In my opinion these things have nothing to do with the position,’* he said. “You must answer the questions. I’ll decide whether they are relevant or not,” said the Magistrate.

Cullen: You left instructions regarding certain work and subsequently carried out alterations to the job without the consent of the owner?

Harris: Your Worship, when I came here I expected a straightforward case. If I had realised these questions were going to be asked I would have got legal advice. These things have nothing to do with the matter. Mr Polson rose, and told Harris that he must answer the questions. “If there was any fault in the job, why did you not issue a fault notice in the proper way and why did you keep Mr Hooper so long without power, which is contrary to the regulations? You pulled out an earth I had connected according to the regulations, and put in another one,” Cullen said. “This is getting out of hand,” said the Magistrate. “You will have to confine your questions to the scope of the charge. You will have an opportunity of stating your side of the case later.” “I feel very strongly about this matter,” Cullen said in the witness box. “It was an urgent job, like many electricians’ jobs, and people’s livelihood was involved. “What I did was standard practice throughout the length and breadth of the country. A principle is involved. Men have died for principles,” Cullen said. Harris was notified of the job and went to the site, said Cullen. “When I went to Kirwee T took the materials to dp the job just as any other electrician or tradesman would. An application for a permit was made the same evening,” said Cullen. It was the usual practice to start urgent dectrical work and then inform the authority so that the inspector could come on the job while it was being done. He had been accused of completing work before the board was notified but that was not true. He was charged with commencing the work before the board was informed and that was something different. Power boards were known for being tardy in their work. He did not make out a form because he did not have one but he wrote the application on a piece of paper. The M.E.D. required a notice 24 hours after the job had been started. Cullen said he had started the job with the knowledge of the authorities though he did not have a formal permit. “I prefer to gb to gaol rather than pay a fine. I will take the matter to the Supreme Court,” said Cullen.

To Mr Polson, Cullen said the letter he had sent to the board, which said the work had been completed, had been incorrect. It was to get the inspector on the job in a hurry. He had endeavoured to telephone the power board during the afternoon but could not get through.

Mr Polson said there were two methods of making an application. . One was by making a verbal request by telephone which would be confirmed in writing

later, and the other was by filling in the form for permission. Cullen had done neither. *'l will have to decide this case on a very narrow point," said the Magistrate. “I am not concerned with the practice but only with the law 5 as it now stands. Cullen conceded that he had actually started the work without getting a permit by telephone or otherwise.” company Fined

“This is clearly a case for a deterrent fine as the company had ample warning and the consequences could be quite serious,” said the Magistrate when fining Canterbury Pipe Lines, Ltd., £2O on a charge of making an attachment to the Christchurch City Council water mains without consent. There was no representative of the company present and it was not represented by counsel.

Mr A. Hearn prosecuted on behalf of the City Council. George Frederick Sauer, an assistant foreman of the council waterworks, said a by-law forbade attachments to the city water mains without permission. At intervals of about 300 ft along the mains there were valves which were used mainly to provide water for fire fighting. It was a common practice for road contractors and others to make application for permission to take water and the council sent a man to install the proper equipment.

If incorrect equipment was used or it if was installed by an incompetent person it was possible that the water mains or valves would be damaged, said Sauer. This could have serious results in the event of a fire. At 2.45 p.m. on March 11, Sauer said he was in Mahars road and he saw a person operating a standpipe out of the water mains belonging to the council. He told the man he had no authority to use the equipment on the mains and he took charge of it. The man told him it belonged to Canterbury Pipe Lines, Ltd. The standpipe was defective and was the incorrect size and was liable to cause damage, said Sauer. The company had been sent a warning letter over similar incidents before this. INCOME NOT RETURNED

The following fines were imposed on persons who failed to make returns of income: Thomas Begbie Robertson, £7; Walter Earl Radford, £2; Horace Edgar Roskilley, £4; David Alexander Titheridge, £3; Clement Carl Thomas, £2; Bryce Duncan Williamson, £25; Carl Thomas Bunker, £4; Francis Lynton Burrows, £4 and £3; Mary Dunlop Campbell, £2; Raymond John Alfred Cawkill, £2; Dorothy Miriam Ching, £3 and £4; Eric Roland D’Anvers, £4; John Small Downie, £3; Peter Albert Doyle, £3; John Dunn, £5; Geoffrey Oswald Ernest Eames, £2; William Stephen Elsom, £4; Graeme Frederick Emms, £2; Cyril Victor Lester, £4; Archie Richard Mathers, £4; James Joseph Owens, £10; Edward Raymond Blazey. £4; Alan George Boreham, £3 and James Bryce, £4. LICENCE SUSPENDED Desmond Alfred Henry Smith, aged 20. a bricklayer, was fined £lO and his driver’s licence was suspended for three months when he was convicted of a charge of driving without due care and attention on September 22. Smith' did not appear. NO RADIO LICENCE For having no radio licence on August 15 Robert Nevill Luff, was ordered to pay costs. REMANDED A youth .aged 18, whose name was suppressed, was remanded in custody until today on a charge of robbing Brian lan Goodwin of a wallet and papers .valued at 6s on November 25. His counsel, Mr B. J. Drake, applied for bail but this was opposed by Sergeant V. F. Townshend who said the accused had already been charged with shopbreaking and theft and the present offence had been committed while he was on bail.

Colin William Thomas Warner, aged 41, a car salesman, was remanded to December 19 on a charge of driving under the influence of drink or drugs on Pages road on December 2. Warner who was represented by Mr A. K. Archer, was granted bail at £5O with one surety of £5O and was ordered to report daily to Xhe police. Charles Arren Burling, aged 39, a workman, was remanded to December 14 under the provisions of the Mental Health Act on a charge of being idle and disorderly in that he had insufficient means of support on December 6. Sergeant Townshend said that Burling had been arrested the day before by Detective-Constable j. A. Marshall. He had not worked for three weeks, had been drinking heavily and had no fixed place of abode. He had a number of previous convictions. Burling aoplied for permission to go to Sunnyside Hospital to prevent him “from going from bad to worse.” On a charge of theft of a silver tea set, valued at £45. the property of Jean McCarthy Ferguson, on November 18, Arthur Clarence Wilder, aged 45, a hospital orderly, was remanded to December 15. Bail was allowed at £5O with a similar surety and he was ordered to report daily to the police. (Before Mr H. T. Fuller, J.P., and Mr J. R. Smith, J.P.) TAKING OF CAR DENIED A negative of a fingerprint found on a rear vision mirror of a stolen car was found to be identical with a finger impression made by the accused, said Sergeant H. H. F. Lissette, a fingerprint expert in the Criminal Registration Branch in Wellington. “On two enlargements, there were 15 prints of similarity, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the prints are identical,” he said. The accused, Wayne Eric Gilbert Sutton, aged 18, a workman (Mr R. G. Blunt) denied a charge of unlawfully taking a 1939 car. valued at £345, the-property of Anthony Thomas Henry Negus, from Latimer square on August 6. Electing trial by jury, he was committed to the Supreme Court. He was allowed bail at £5O, with a similar surety, and was ordered to report twice weekly to the New Brighton police. Returning to Latimer square after going to the pictures, on August 6, he found that his car was not there, said Negus. It was later recovered by him near the Papanui railway station. Interviewed on October 29, Sut-

ton denied taking the oar and said that he had never been in the car nor knew any body who owned one. said Detective Constable B. J. Preston, of the Criminal Investigation Branch. About five minutes after he had been arrested, Sutton suddenly said that he remembered one night about the time the car was taken, he was picked up by a car while he was walking along Papanui road and given a lift, said Detective Preston. Sutton could not remember who the people were, where he was dropped or why he was walking along Papanui road alone. “The evidence is not sufficient to put Sutton on trial nor is there a strong presumption of guilt,” said Mr Blunt, in asking that Sutton be discharged. “His presence in the car could be explained in a number of ways and he could have touched the mirror for a number of reasons.”