LIGHTS NOT SCREENED

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 191, 10 May 1941, Page 13

LIGHTS NOT SCREENED

Gravity Of Offence Stressed

LYALL BAY RESIDENT

FINED

“When we have a lack of that cooperation essential in any community in time of danger—indeed, at till times, but particularly now —and that lack of co-operation is wilfully committed, the Courts have to impose heavy penalties,” said Mr. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday, during the hearing of a charge against Ernest Annear, Tavistock Road, Lyall Bay. an employee of the Wellington Gas Company, of failing to comply with the lighting restrictions. Annear pleaded guilty. Indeed, the Courts might have to consider imprisonment without the option of a fine, the magistrate added. Sub-Inspector L. R. Capp, who prosecuted, said that while patrolling Tavistock Road on March 18, a district warden under the lighting regulations observed that the blinds of Annear’s fiat were not drawn and that the fanlights were unscreened. The light was showing directly out to sea. When the warden spoke to him, Annear wanted to know about the searchlights and the lights on the Air Force building. On March 24 the warden saw that the blinds were drawn; on the 25th they were up and on the 26th they were down. On Friday, the 2Sth, the blinds were found to be up and the fanlights unscreened. Interviewed by the warden, Annear said he was an old soldier. He was then served with a notice containing a list of directions, but without reading it, he tore it up and threw it on the ground. On a later evening, the lights were seen to be shining, but though the warden knocked on the door, there was no response. To a constable, Annear said that the city council should show a lead and not run lighted trams round Lyall’ Bay. To the magistrate, Annear said he threw the notice on the ground because he was aware of the regulations. It was only by oversight that the lights were showing. The magistrate said that had Annear been in a position to pay the proper fine, which could not have been less than £lO, the Court would have imposed that line. The fine of £2 with costs 16/- which would be imposed because of Annear’s circumstances appeared, much too small for the gravity of the offence.