Australians Convicted On Charges Of Vagrancy

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29725, 19 January 1962, Page 6

Australians Convicted On Charges Of Vagrancy

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Jan. 18.

Arrested eight days after his arrival in New Zealand, an Australian, Desmond Barry Tatchell, aged 24, a workman, was convicted of being an idle and disorderly person in that he had insufficient lawful means of supBort, when he appeared in the iagistrate’s Court at Auckland today. Tatchell, who appeared before Mr J. W. Kealy, S.M., pleaded not guilty. The Magistrate remanded him for a week in custody for a Probation Officer’s report and sentence. Arthur Slater, a Melbourne detective sergeant on exchange to New Zealand, said

that on January 10 he went into the New Criterion Hotel, where he found Tatchell. Tatchell at first said his name was “King” and that he came from Napier, said Slater. Later Tatchell said he had been in Auckland for about a week, and that witness had seen him in hotels in Fitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne.

He said he swam across the Tasman and was living “anywhere.’’ He had no money in his possession.

Tatchell said in a sworn statement from the witness box that he had worked for one day the day before his arrest as a casual labourer. He had paid rent for accommodation until the end of the week of his arrest. Another Australian, Elizabeth Jones Carr, aged 25, a waitress, pleaded not guilty to stowing away to New Zealand on December 23 at Melbourne in the Kauri and to being idle and disorderly in that she had no lawful means of support on January 12. She was convicted and remanded in custody to January 25 for a probation report and sentence.

Slater, in evidence, said he recognised Carr outside an Auckland hotel last week. Later he discovered she had stowed away to come to New Zealand.