AFTER HOURS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 137, 6 December 1930, Page 14

AFTER HOURS

MEN VISIT HOTEL

SEVERAL CONVICTED

Five men charged with bring on licensed premises after hours appeared before Mr. E. Page, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon. The first case to be dealt with was that of Arthur Smethurst, who, Sub-Inspector Lopdell said, entered the New Zealander Hotel at 6.30 p.m. on'Stk October. On coming out of the hotel he told a sergeant and a constable that he had ordered some whisky on the previous day and had just called in to get it. Smethurst, giving evidence, said that he went into the hotel on 7th October during the lunch hour, and paid 15s for a bottle^i whisky. As he could not take it to-the place where he was working he asked it he could call for it later, and was told that it would be left at the office. The following day at about 6.30 p.m. he entered the hotel, and the porter brought him the whisky, which' was wrapped up and had the name "Arthur" written on it. Witness then left the hotel and got into a taxi. About forty or fifty yards down the road he was stopped by a sergeant and a constable, who asked him to go back to the New Zealander Hotel.. After that he went to the Taranaki street police station, where he made a statement, which he signed. Cross-examined by Sub-Inspector Lopdell, Smethurst admitted that he had been visited by a person connected with the New Zealander Hotel before he had gone into the witness-box, The Sub-Inspector pointed out that in his statement made at Taranaki street Smethurst had said, "I did not handle or see the bottle until it was handed to me to-night." In his present evidence he denied this, and said that he had been shown the bottle when he paid the money. Mr. Page said that if. the original -statement of the defendant was true he would be unlawfully on the premises, as he would be completing a purchase which he commenced on the previous day. He found it difficult to think that a layman would have made such an alteration in lite statement without the prompting of someone conversant with the licensing regulations or versed in law. The Magistrate fined the defendant £2 and costs. Thomas George Martin and Frederick James Northcvoft, for whom Mr. EvansScott appeared, pleaded, not guilty on a similar charge. . . . : _Sergeant Payne said that he-visited the New Zealander Hotel, on the night of 14th November and saw Martin and Northcroft and another man, Gardner, standing near the office. When he approached all three went into the sitting-room, in which a man and a woman were sitting near the fire. . .... Martin told the Magistrate that he and his brother-in-law, Northcroft, who lived at Lower Hutt, came into town on Friday night. Martin was leaving on annual holiday on the Monday, and having promised the licensee, Mrs .Brougfa, to deliver any parcels or messages to her sister, Mrs. O'Connor, in Napier, they called in to see her. Mrs. Brough was out, and they were standing at the office talking when the police arrived. The Magistrate fined each of the defendants £2. Kenneth .Hurst Garduer, who was found standing in the New Zealander Hotel with Novtheroft and Martin,- pleaded that be had called at the hotel to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. O'Connor, whom lie had known in Napier. A fine of £2 was inflicted. Donald Beer was also fined £2 for being on licensed premises after hours.