THE ANTI-SHOUTING LAW

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 61, 5 December 1917, Page 6

THE ANTI-SHOUTING LAW

STRANGE CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. disbarne, December 4. A somewhat unusual case was heard before the Magistrate, Mr. Barton, when Richara James, a barman at the Coronation Hotel, was charged with a breach of the anti-shouting regulations. Two'constables employed as informers gave evidence that the defendant supplied them with liquor in breach of the regulations. When they challenged him subsequently he said he had been previously convicted of a similar offence and he was not going to be caught again. He added that "his mouth was closed like an Auckland oyster." . Mr. Burnard, for the defence, contended that the constables had identified James after the commission of the alleged offence merely because they had been informed that the barman who had served them on the night in question would be in the bar at a certam hour. That barman's place was taken on the particular occasion by defendant, and the constables immediately identified the wrong man. Four witnesses were called, all of them swoaring that James was not m the bar when the alleged offence was committed. . . The Magistrate, in dismissing the case, said there was overwhelming evidence to prove that the constables were under a misapprehension on the question of identity. A charge against the licensee of permitting shouting was withdrawn. Charges against two other licensees of permitFing shouting were dismissed, and John Stockley, barman at the Gishorne Hotel, and Vincent Nicholas, harman at the Masonic Hotel, were each fined £50. '