CASE OF CAPTAIN YEATES

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 26, 30 January 1919, Page 11

CASE OF CAPTAIN YEATES

( (HtOH OUR OWN CORRHSPONDMIT.}

LONDON, 10th December. When Captain Edward Yeates, F.R.C. 5.1., appealed at the London Sessions against his .conviction at Bow-street for alleged unlawfully wearing the uniform of a captain :in the N.Z.E.F., Sir Robert Wallace said there was nothing, in the circumstances, reflecting on his honour, and if he would give an undertaking not to wear uniform of a Territorial officer the penalty would be reduced from twen-ty-five pounds to one shilling, with costs. This was done. Captain. Yeates undertook not to wear any uniform he was not entitled to. This did not dispose of the costs in the case, and! Dr. Yeates . was recently summoned in respect of these. He made it clear that he had no intention of paying them, and wHs quite willing to go to prison, if necessary. The case was then adjourned for a week. Dr. Yeates has since been informed that, owing to the intervention of the Home Secretary, the matter of costs will not .be proceeded with; nor has he paid the; fine. In the House of Commons, on SOth November, Sir Robert Cooper asked the Under-Secretary of State for War if, taking into consideration the circumstances in which Dr. Edward Yeates, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and- an'officer in ther New-"Zealand Expeditionary Force which occupied Samoa, is placed, in view of the distinguished services which Dr. Yeates has rendered to the Empire in the present war and in the Boer War, he can see his way to make some compromise with him which -will relieve him of the financial burden which he has incurred in his attempts to increase the efficiency of the Services with which he has been connected. This incident, which has extended for some months, and in which Sir Joseph Ward and the High Commissioner were both Summoned as witnesses, is believed to be the outcome of his case in Cairo I against the military authorities there, who took action against him on a Gazette notice, alleging that he had resigned his commission in the Territorial Force of New Zealand. Captain Yeates won the case with £180 damages and costs estimated to run into a thousand pounds.