Conviction for picketer

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 25

Conviction for

picketer

PA Dunedin One of 33 men facing charges as a result of picketing the Ravensdown Fertiliser Works last month pleaded guilty when he appeared in the District Court at Dunedin. William Alexander Findlater, aged 40, a leading hand, the man at the centre of the dispute, pleaded guilty before Judge Seeman to a charge laid on February 17 that, with a view to compelling Graham Robert Fox and Neil Alexander Marshall to abstain from entering their place of work, he did, with various other persons “wrongfully and without legal authority watch or beset the approach to the said premises.” The other 32 picketers, who have all pleaded not guilty to a charge laid down under Section 33 of the Police Offenders Act, will appear in court on Tuesday. The charge was laid under

subsection II of that section, part of which refers to an offence by persons who “prevent any person from working at or exercising any lawful trade, business, or occupation.”

The picketers will also face a new charge laid under a subsection which states that “every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or works, or carries on his business, or happens to be, or the approach to such a house or place.” Findlater was convicted and discharged without penalty, but ordered to pay $lO costs and $3O prosecution costs. He was represented by Mr G. J. Lucas.