SUPREME COURT Licensee’s Appeal Against Conviction Fails

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31205, 1 November 1966, Page 8

SUPREME COURT Licensee’s Appeal Against Conviction Fails

When police called at the Valley Inn Hotel on a Sunday night and twice asked to inspect the premises—the second time saying they wanted to "look through the bar”— they had made an adequate demand to enter, Mr Justice Wilson has ruled in the Supreme Court. His Honour, in a reserved decision, upholds a conviction against Maurice Frederick Neiman for failing, as licensee of the hotel, to admit the police without delay on their demand of entry on the night of September 6. The right and duty of the police to enter were quite clear, his Honour said. On facts traversed during the appeal, Sergeant A. G. Adcock had had to ask Neiman four times to unlock a back door and let the police into the hotel, where they found 11 men watching television in a lounge opposite the bar, and strong indications of drinking having been going on. Eight of the 11 men had had no lawful excuse for being on the premises. Neiman, the police said, had come out into the back yard, locking the door behind him, and talked to the police party, saying that he first wanted to see about someone who had been prowling there. Neiman, through Mr R. A. Young, had appealed against his conviction for failing to admit the police without delay as being erroneous in fact and in law. He had submitted that the police demands were ineffective because they did not give the explicit grounds on which they sought entry. His Honour, in his decision, said: “It is true that Sergeant Adcock did not say, T demand to enter and inspect the bar because I suspect that you have been engaged in after-hours trading,’ ” But it was sufficient, said his Honour, if the form of the demand showed the purpose for which entry was

sought—and on his second demand of entry, Sergeant Adcock had said he wanted “to have a look through the bar.” His Honour said that Neiman’s evasive and delaying tactics, and Sergeant Adcock's repeated demands, left no doubt that from the time of the latter’s second demand.

he suspected on reasonable grounds that an offence had been, or was being, committed. “Both Sergeant Adcock’s i duty and right to enter the ’ hotel were then clear, and Neiman’s failure to admit him without unnecesary delay, equally clear,” said his Honour, dismissing the appeal. Ten guineas costs were , awarded against Neiman.