Man charged with justice obstruction

Press, 23 June 1984, Page 4

Man charged with justice obstruction

The efforts over several months of trying to serve summonses on a man for parking infringements, complicated by his allegedly denying that he was the person concerned or that the car was his, were related in the District Court yesterday. Dean Andrew Hamilton, aged 29, a sickness beneficiary, faced a charge that between July 6, 1983, and March 27 this year he wilfully attempted to obstruct the course of justice by denying that he was the person legally liable for the servicing summonses relating to various parking infringements, and that he gave false information with intent to mislead.

After hearing depositions of evidence of prosecution witnesses, Mr J. B. Andersen and Dr J. F. Mann, Justices of the Peace, held that there was sufficient evidence to commit the defendant for trial. They remanded him on bail to July 9 pending a date for trial in the High Court. Counsel (Mr R. A. Peters) reserved his defence.

Sergeant J. E. Dwyer, who prosecuted, said in his outline of the prosecution case that in May last year the defendant bought a Morris Oxford car. The owner signed a change of ownership form and gave this to the defendant for action.

Subsequently, the Christchurch City Council parking division submitted notices of prosecution for parking infringements on at least 17 occasions for this vehicle. These could not be processed or served on the defendant as he did not accept liability, and claimed he was not the person involved.

Stuart Robert Gray, a

freezing worker, said that in May-June last year he had his car for sale. The defendant bought it for $3OO, and was given a copy of the ownership papers, as he said he would carry out the change of ownership. Barbara Jean Englefield, an employee of a security firm, said she was authorised to serve process summonses. She detailed her efforts to serve six summonses at adjoining house addresses in Bordesley Street, in the name of York Hunt. Eventually, visiting one house where she saw the car parked and being told by the occupant that Dean Hamilton lived next door, but did not always use that name, she went to the neighbouring house.

There, the defendant said he was not Dean Hamilton and that he “did not want to get into this.”

She told him she was sure he was Dean Hamilton, and that she was going to serve the documents on him. As he went to go inside she dropped the documents inside the door, and left. Mrs Englefield said she told the defendant she had seen the car in the nextdoor property and he replied that he had sold it to the man who lived there.

She said that of the times she visited the address she spoke to the defendant perhaps three times. Each time he denied being Dean Hamilton.

Cross-examined, she said she had attempted to serve the summonses three or four times before, the first time being last November. She had asked the person in the next door property about ownership of the car and he had claimed that the vehicle was his and that he

had bought it a fortnight before for $lOO from Dean Hamilton, who was his landlord and lived next door. Other evidence was that the defendant called on a City Councill administration officer complaining about the serving of the summonses on him by the security firms officer. He denied that he and Dean Hamilton and York Hunt were the same person. He said he did not own the car. Constable D. J. Cochrane gave evidence of interviewing the defendant. He said he had owned a Morris Oxford car, having bought it from Stuart Gray. He had since sold it to a man who owed him money for rent and power and still owed money for the car.

He had last had the car at the end of last year. He and his “missus” drove it and he never lent it. He had used the name, York Hunt, when he did the change of ownership from Mr Gray because somebody had written a letter to him with that name on it and he liked it, and thought it would be a good opportunity to use it.

He said he had denied, to the security-firm woman, being York Hunt.

Asked if he knew what the summonses were for, the defendant told the constable he knew he would have bills coming. He had denied being Dean Hamilton or York Hunt because he did not want to “get hit” with the bills. He said he “would not have the foggiest” how many parking tickets he incurred while he had the car. He just screwed them up and threw them away. He did not ever read them. He was not paying the City Council any money.