Rabbits In Luggage

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 24

Rabbits In Luggage

(N.Z. Press Association) WHANGAREI, January 29. A man who brought two rabbit carcases into ithe country was fined in ithe Whangarei Magistrate’s Court yesterday. I Declining a request for I suppression of name, Mr J. B.

Bergin, S.M., convicted Albert Noyer, aged 68, a retired steward, on charges relating to the Animals Act and the Plant Quarantine Regulations. Noyer pleaded guilty through Mr R. G Whiting. The charges were laid by Michael Vincent McNamara, port agricultural officer, Whangarei, and Mr J. W. Imrie prosecute' 1 . Mr Imrie said the defendant had been seen taking luggage from the Tanker Athelviscount at Marsden Point on November 14. A parcel containing what appeared to be two rabbit carcases, and another containing flower bulbs, had been found in the luggage.

Mr Whiting said the defendant had just completed his last voyage and had retired after 40 years with the Union Steam Ship Company. In Australia he had purchased the rabbit meat and the bulbs for his wife, cn Australian citizen, who was ill. Noyer believed that the meat was cleared by an over-all certificate signed by the captain when the ship called at Lyttelton.

The Magistrate fined Noyer 5125 on the meat charge and $lO on the bulb charge. Payment of $5 costs and $lO solicitor’s fee was ordered on each charge. A charge against the master of the Athelviscount, Ermund Harold Busby, of signing an erroneous certificate was dismissed. Mr Imrie said the charge resulted from an inspection of the ship’s meat locker after the rabbit meat had been found in Noyer’s luggage. This revealed about 1201 b of Australian chicken which was not listed on the certificate signed by the master at Lyttelton. <

The Magistrate upheld submissions by Mr P. J. Lynch that the prosecution had not

shown proof of any wilful act by the defendant. He also said that -he original of the certificate signed by Busby and kept on the department’s file in Lyttelton should have been available to the Court, rather than the copy taken from the ship at Whangarei.