MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 55, 28 November 1929, Page 7

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

POLICE CASES

Mr. E. Page, S.M., presided in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Robert George Sadd, aged 30, and Eileen Ryan, aged 35, both second offenders for drunkenness within six months, were each fined . 10/-, in default forty-eight hours’ imprisonment.. On a charge of carnal knowledge, Robert Boswell Gurney, a labourer, aged 25, who pleaded not guilty, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.

“I think this was a stupid drunken escapade committed without any real intention to take away the plants,” said . the Magistrate when referring to Myles Barrington Williams, James Hill and Leslie John Withers, three young men who were charged with stealing three tubs containing ornamental trees, valued in all at £3, the property of the Ritz Restaurant Co., Ltd. Williams, when out in a motor-ear with the other two, took the plants from the side of the Ritz in Lombard Street and shortly afterwards dumped them in a vacant section in Brooklyn. When in Brooklyn, he created a disturbance outside a policeman’s house, with the result that the constable took him into custody on charges of drunkenness and obscene language. Williams was fined in the 'Court the next morning and on the evening of the ease the constable found the trees discarded in the vacant section. When interviewed by the pol-

ice, Williams admitted taking the trees but stated he did not do so with the intent to commit theft but simply out of mischief. After hearing the evidence the Magistrate dismissed the charge of theft against Williams, but committed him for committing mischief and fined him £2, in default seven days’ imprisonment. The charge of theft was' likewise dismissed against the other two accused, for whom Mr. A. B. Sievwright appeared, the Magistrate saying that on the evidence he could not convict them for mischief as he had done Williams. Mr. W. E. Leicester represented Williams. An application for the suppression of the names of Hill and Withers was refused. “The charge is dismissed,” said the Magistrate, “so there is no stigma against them.”