CENSURE ADMITTED

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 129, 28 November 1923, Page 3

CENSURE ADMITTED

SCHOOLMASTER'S LIBEL ACTION AGAINST VICAR.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

AUCKLAND, 27th November. The case in which the Anglican vicar of Waimate North, Bay of Islands, the Rev. John William Robinson, was sued for £600 damages for alleged libel th« plaintiff being William John May, school teacher at Waimate North, was continued in the Supreme Court to-day. Mr. Endean (counsel for plaintiff) said that the school committee had summoned plaintiff to appear before them, and, according to him, defendant accused him of being guilty of immoral teaching to ..children. Naturally, plaintiff jumped to his feet and said, "It is a lie " Defendant amended his statement to "improper teaching." Apparently,- in the course of giving civic instruction to the school children, May gave a brief account of the Poiisonby murder trial with the object that it might be a deterrent to the boys not to commit crime. Then there was a reference to a w6inan who committed suicide, to illustrate the meaning of the term "despondency." 1 "There was nothing very serious about | that," commented counsel. "You will, j hear from Mr. Dunlop, the advisory inspector, who investigated the matter, that he considered that what was read to the children was reprehensible, and that May was told not to do it again." Mr. West (for the defendant): "He was censured." Mr. Endean: "Yes, he was censured, out does that justify a minister saying that a schoolmaster who had been fortytwo years teaching was the most unmitigated scoundrel he had ever met?" When cross-examined, plaintiff said that he did not read the* Ponsonby murder case "to the children, but he mentioned it. He admitted that he might have told the children how an execution took place, and that he might hava drawn a gallows with a trap door ou the blackboard. After a considerable amount of evidence had been heard, the hearing wai adjourned.