PARTY TO SALE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 56, 3 September 1936, Page 26

PARTY TO SALE

DECISION REVERSED

(By Telegraph.—jPress Association.) HAMILTON, September 2. In a reserved judgment given by Mr. Justice Fair«in-the Supreme Court at Hamilton today it was held that a party to the sale of liquor in a proclaimed area was liable to conviction. The judgment arose from a case heard at the present sitting when: the police brought an appeal against the dismissal by Mr. R. M. Watson, S.M., at Taumarunui, of., a charge of selling liquor in a proclaimed area. Respondent was Halim Kallil, storekeeper, of Ohura. The Magistrate held that there was no proof that the liquor in question was the property of respondent, and that respondent was doing no more than obliging a purchaser who had bought other commodities from him. He obtained the liquor for his client, but did not sell it to him. In giving judgment, his Honour held that there was ample evidence as a matter of . law that respondent had aided, abetted, or procured the sale of the liquor and should therefore, by virtue of section 54 of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1927, have been convicted of the principal offence of selling the liquor. His Honour added that he thought section 54 of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1927, should be read in conjunction with section. 273, subsection (a), clause 11, of the Licensing Act, 1903, when such cases were under consideration. The omission in that sub-section to refer specifically to a purchase did not justify in his view the inference that purchasers or their agents were intended to be excluded from liability. His Honour allowed the appeal without costs and remitted the case to the Magistrate's Court for a conviction to be entered accordingly.