BETTING ON LICENSED PREMISES

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 60, 11 March 1918, Page 8

BETTING ON LICENSED PREMISES

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH CASE,

Tho charge, of permitting or conniving at gambling on the premises of the Dukeof Edinburgh Hotel preferred agahist Francis Joseph Qakes, licensee, is being further considered to-day at the Magistrate's Court, by Mr. &. E. M'Carthy,

When the case was called last week, Air. M. Myers, counsel for the defendant, raised a. point* of law. He contended that a conviction could not 'do returned under section 185 of the Licensing Act, and the Magistrate reserved decision on that point. This afternoon his Worship said he would require to hear evidence for the defence and further legal argument before decision could be given. Defendant, in the witness-box, gave evidence that he had kept supervision over the bars of his hotel since 1916, and had served each bar employee with a printed notice, as well as verbal notice,^ forbidding them to be party to betting on the premises. Peter Hepner, head barman at the hotel, corroborated the evidence given by defendant as to the distribution of warnings.

Percy Winters, barman, ceUarman, and sfcoreman, and one of the men convicted and fined for making bets in the hotel, said ho did no betting when the licensee was about, and lie conld have had no knowledge of what witness was doing. To Inspector Marsack, witness said that, though he had been convicted of betting in the hotel, he was still employed by the licensee. The two bets he made with, the constables were the only bets he had made in the hotel, and he did not act as agent for any other bookmaker. Witness refused to say from whom he obtained the double card by which were calculated the odds for the bets which were taken with the constables on the occasion of their visit.

(Proceeding.)