SEAMAN CHARGED

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 112, 5 February 1941, Page 5

SEAMAN CHARGED

xAHeged Attempt To Evade Censorship

Decision was reserved by Mr. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday, in a case in which Frederick Noel Barker Robertson, seaman, was charged with attempting to evade the effective censorship in New Zealand by undertaking to assist in the forwarding, to Australian addresses, of applications for tickets in the New South Wales lottery. Robertson admitted the facts but pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Detective-Sergeant SV. McLennan said Robertson, who was a seaman, lived in Auckland, but had a post office box iu TVelliugtou. Recently a search was made of defendant’s effects in his ship, then at Lyttelton, and among his possessions were found three letters to Australian addresses which defendant, admitted he intended to post, on behalf of New Zealand correspondents, when he reached Australia. These letters, said Mr. McLennan, all contained applications for lottery tickets. Robertson was taking them over to oblige the people who had given them to him.

“I wish to point out,” said Mr. McLennan, "that if this correspondence can go there in this manner it is going to evade altogether the object of the regulations.” Mr. F. W Ongley, counsel for the defendant, submitted that the regulations applied to communications that usually went, through the post. These applications, he said, belonged to the class of matter that did not usually go through the post at all. There was no attempt to evade the censorship, but even if the Court thought that it came within tho scope of the regulations it ■was not a case that called for a penalty. “Being a seaman, defendant won't want any information to get out to anybody,” said counsel.