Hearing adjourned again

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 2

Hearing adjourned again

Staff reporter Nelson A medical beneficiary, Robert John Erwood, aged 29, did not appear in the Magistrate’s Court at Nelson yesterday to answer two charges concerning the misuse of a telephone. Mr K. H. J. Headifen, S.M., last week adjourned the date for the hearing to yesterday — the fifth time the charges have been adjourned since they were relaid on March 8. When his name was called, Mr P. J. McNabb said he had been assigned under the legal aid scheme for Erwood, but he had received no instructions from him nor heard anything about the matter. He believed, however, that Erwood was seeking another adjournment. The Magistrate said that the Registrar of the Nelson Supreme Court (Mr T. R. Teague) had received from a firm of Wellington solicitors yesterday a letter giving notice of appeal against the Magistrate’s decision of March 8 (when he dismissed the charges without prejudice), and an application to have the appeal heard out of time. Until this appeal had been heard, Erwood had asked that the matters before the Magistrate’s Court be adjourned. The police prosecutor (Sergeant J. S. Paterson) said he could not Oppose the adjournment but the police were most unhappy about a further adjournment because of the work involved in arranging witnesses’ appearances. “The practice in the North Island appears to be very different from that in the South Island,” said the Magistrate, referring to the solicitors’ letter.

In his younger days when in practice, he said, the Court was granted the courtesy of a solicitor making an appearance to put such matters to a Magistrate. “Now it seems it can be done by correspondence,” he said.