DAMAGE IN CELLS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 6

DAMAGE IN CELLS

KECALCITKANT PRISONERS ITASTEETOX, This Day. Two young men "who were asleep in a car pulled up outside a .fruiterer's shop in the main street of Mnsterton on Wednesday afternoon attracted considerable public attention, and also the attention of the police. Constables Boyd and Johnson aroused the sleepers, who, on being removed from the car were, ljoih found to be under the influence of liquor. Their arrest followed, and they were lodged in the police cells for the night. On u visit being paid to the cell in which the accused were at 7.15 p.m., Constable Boyd discovered the mattress on five and pulled it out into the station yard. "While he was doing this the occupants stated that they wanted to get out. They threatened to "burn the whole d place down." They were' placed in another coll, but when this was visited later a second mattress was found to be on fire, and one of the accused was tearing out the fibre. The floor grating was also charred. On examining the cell in the morning it was found that one side of the grating had been pulled right out. Yesterday the two men, Neil Gordon MacDonald, shearer, of Mauriceville, the owner of the car, and Alfred George Graham MacDonald, also n -shearer, of Pahiatua, appeared before Mr. J. Miller, S.M., in the Magistrate"* Court. On a charge of being intoxicated while in charge of a car, Neil MaeDonald was fined £"20, his present licence was cancelled, and he was prevented from holding another licence for twelve months. Each of the accused was convicted and lined £2, and was ordered to pay half the damage in respect to a charge of wilfully' damaging two mattresses and a grating, to a value of £5. Alfred MacDonald was fined 10s for drunkenness.