COUNSEL’S COMPLAINT

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 105, 27 January 1939, Page 11

COUNSEL’S COMPLAINT

Allegation That Client Was Being Victimized MAGISTRATE’S COMMENT By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, January 20. Allegations that his client w;ia being persecuted and victimized by continued prosecutions brought against him were made by Mr. A. JI. Cavell, counsel for George'William Bettie, manufacturing chemist, in the Magistrates’ Court this morning, when Bettie was charged with having sold cough cure on the package of which the fact that it contained morphine was not stated. The magistrate, Mr. E. C. Levvey, dismissed the charge on payment of costs, commenting that he thought the breach of the regulations could have been remedied without a prosecution. Bettie was a little unorthodox in his business methods, said Mr. Cavell, and it might be that other chemists were up against him. He bird been prosecuted when others should have been charged before he was. Because he did not follow orthodox methods there was no reason why he should be victimized. Bettie was so worried by what he considered amounted to persecution by the authorities that he had interviewed the Minister’ of Health. Mr. A. W. Brown, who prosecuted for the Health Department, said the regulations provided that the name aud quantity of a poison had to be mentioned on the package, as well as the word "poison,” the alternative being a caution in the place of the word "poison.” This did not mean that the quantity of morphine could be omitted. "I do feel that this could have been remedied without a prosecution,” said the magistrate. "I am not prepared to enter a conviction. The charge will be dismissed on payment of costs, which I think will be sufficient penalty in the circumstances.”