APPEALS FAIL

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30445, 20 May 1964, Page 8

APPEALS FAIL

Driver And Bankrupt

Mr Justice Wilson dismissed an appeal in the Supreme Court yesterday by Arthur Edward Payne,, aged 55, a farmer (Mr L. C. Moore) against a sentence of 21 days’ gaol for driving under the influence of drink or drugs on April 22. His Honour said he had given due weight to Payne’s excellent record of community service, but he was sure the magistrate had done so too. In view, of Payne’s record of driving offences he could hot say that the 21 days’ imprisonment and 10 years’ driving disqualification was manifestly excessive. His Honour also dismissed an appeal by Claude Robert McQuoid, aged 27, a scrapmetal dealer (Mr Moore), against a sentence of one month’s gaol for failing to keep proper books of account.

His Honour said the charge arose out of McQuoid’s bankruptcy. The difference between being solvent and keeping no hooks and not being solvent ahd keeping no books was that in the second case the person was dealing with money that morally belonged to someone else. That was the justification for the punishment the law imposed on someone who was insolvent and had kept no proper accounts.

McQuoid had no excuse, he said. Simple records would have been adequate. It was a salutory lesson to him and to the community.