A SERIOUS CHARGE

Evening Post, Issue 122, 26 May 1933, Page 9

A SERIOUS CHARGE

LIVING ON IMMORALITY

Allegations of a serious and unusual nature were made by the police at the Magistrate's Court yesterday against Boy William Spencer, aged. 34, who was charged with permitting premises in tho city to be used for an undesirable purpose, and also with being an idle and disorderly person in that he habitually consorted with reputed prostitutes. Tho allegations of the police were that the accused had taken two young women to the premises of .Chinamen for immoral purposes. In asking that ah order should be made to clear the court, SubInspector Martin said that the evidence would be of a sordid and revolting nature. The Magistrate (Mr. E. Page) made the order asked for. The Sub-Inspector also asked for an order suppressing the names of the witnesses. Mr. A. B. Sievwright, who appeared for the accused and entered a plea oi not-guilty on his behalf, opposed the second application. An application, he suid, was being made to protect people who were coming into the court to admit that they were carrying ou a house in an undesirable manner and that someone else was assisting with tho management. He i submitted that the Court would hesitate to make.an order to protect people who did not requiro protection. • Reference to the application for the suppression of the witnesses' names was made by the Magistrate after he had heard the evidence.. Mr. Page said that he had given the matter some thought, and did not propose to make an order.1 He thought that it was a matter for the discretion of tlie papers. The Magistrate then said that ho would give a written judgment. In his .-judgment delivered this morning, Mr. Page found the accused guilty on both charges. He said that the evidence had shown that for a period of about a month jthe accused had lived with a girl nineteen years -of age, and during the whole of that period he had •habitually promoted her indiscriminate prostitution, chiefly with Chinese, and that he received and lived on the earnings of her immorality. After leaving her he got her younger sister to go and live with him for some two months, up to the time of his arrest. This girl,l when called as a, witness, proved hostile, and repudiated a lengthy andi detailed statement that she had made regarding her doings while under the defendant's control. Evidence of a Qhinaman had been heard, however, and the Magistrate had no doubt that she was also carrying on prostitution. Mr. Page sentenced the accused to three months' imprisonment on each charge, the terms to be concurrent.