Claim Withdrawn After Apology

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29855, 22 June 1962, Page 17

Claim Withdrawn After Apology

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 21. Withdrawal of a claim for £3OOO by John Cuthbert Bicknell, a freezing worker, and former president of the Southdown branch of the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union against the union’s district president, Trevor Percival Kelly, for alleged slander, was announced by Bicknell’s senior counsel, Mr L. F. Moller, when the hearing resumed today.

Mr Justice Boys said it was eminently proper that this difference between two zealous unionists should have been settled by whatever means was appropriate and counsel's announcement reflected credit on the parties and their counsel (Mr Moller, with him Mr J. H. Wallace, for Bicknell, and Mr F. H Haigh, with him Mr R. A Adams-Smith, for Kelly). Earlier, in announcing that the claim would be discontinued, Mr Moller read an apology approved by Kelly m these terms:

“I, Trevor Kelly, hereby admit that the statements made by me at the Onehunga wharf on March 10. 1960. and at a meeting of the Westfield branch of the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union, and at a meeting of the Southdown branch of the same union on March 11. 1960, reflecting adversely upon the character of John Cuthbert Bicknell as a man or as a trade unionist, were wholly unjustified. "I apologise to Mr Bicknell for making these statements and deeply regret any injury of whatever nature that my statements may have caused to him; “I give him unqualified

permission for the publication of this apology in whatever manner he may choose at the Westfield Freezing Works, at the Southdown Freezing Works and at the Onehunga wharf, and I also authorise him to publish it twice in the Auckland newspapers." Late yesterday afternoon Bicknell became ill, while sitting in the Auckland Supreme Court, and was taken to Auckland Public Hospital by ambulance. Subsequently it was reported that he was seriously ill.

Today his condition was reported to be “a little better.”