Man Fined £70 For Having Marijuana

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31366, 11 May 1967, Page 3

Man Fined £70 For Having Marijuana

(Neto Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 10.

A 33-year-old restaurant proprietor and folk-singer, Nicholas Alan Villard, was fined £7O today by Mr H. Jenner Wily, S.M., on a charge of being found in possession of' marijuana.

Villard pleaded not guilty at the hearing yesterday. In an oral reserved decision the Magistrate said there was clear evidence that there was a considerable quantity of marijuana in Villard’s home. Villard had emphatically denied that he was aware of the presence of the drugs in the house.

Evidence was given of the discovery of grains of marijuana in the pocket of a jacket hanging in the passageway of Villard’s home. Villard had said he had not worn the coat for two years and had suggested that someone might have planted grains in the pocket, as he had a certain number of enemies through running his restaurant, the Embers. There was no evidence that anyone else had ever worn

or had the right to wear the jacket. Someone must have put the drug in the pocket, but there was no direct evidence that Villard did not.

The Magistrate said he could not accept Villard’s evidence on a cigarette case containing a reefer, found in a divan in Villard’s home. Villard had said it had been found on a table at the Embers and he had put it in his bedroom. He did not know how it came to be in the divan.

Counsel, Mr P. A. Williams, said that Villard was an exceptionally hard worker who had made a name for himself as a ballad and folk-singer. Villard would have to face a double penalty because he was a public figure, and the case would cause him loss of contracts.