ROYALIST CASE
£4OO Towards Legal Costs (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 13. The Government has agreed to pay £4OO toward legal expenses incurred by Commander H. R. Simmonds in a court-martial after the breakdown in H.M.N.Z.S. Royalist in the Coral Sea in November, 1965.
Commander Simmonds, engineer officer at the time of the breakdown, was found not guilty of negligence in failing to prevent the spread of contamination in the vessel’s propulsion machinery. The Minister of Defence (Mr Thompson), in a letter to Mr N. V. Douglas (Opp., Auckland Central) said the Government accepted that the involved nature of the case required greater emphasis on the court-martial’s public inquiry aspects and this had an appreciable effect on the defence’s legal costs. Mr Thompson said the Justice Department was considering the extent to which service cases should be covered by legal aid.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 3
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141ROYALIST CASE Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 3
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