MAN'S ARREST

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 59, 7 September 1937, Page 7

MAN'S ARREST

PROTEST BY COUNSEL

/ INFORMATION DISMISSED

(By ; Telegraph—Press. Association;)

AUCKLAND, September 6.

Arrested as he was coming down the gangway of the Awatea .on Friday night, on a charge laid, by his wife of allegedly having failed and with intention to fail to provide her with adequate maintenance, a young Auckland merchant spent that night in the police cells, only to be released on bail when. he appeared before two Justices of the Peace in the Magistrate's Court. on Saturday morning, and only after his wife intimated that she would withdraw the information she had laid.

As the presiding Justices did not have jurisdiction to deal with the case, it came before Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., today, when Mr. A. K. Turner, counsel for the defendant, registered emphatic protest and invited the Mag-isti-ate to make a public pronouncement upon the unusual circumstances which, counsel alleged, "amounted *o nothing less than a scandal."

"My client is living apart from his wife under an agreement to separate," said Mr. Turner. "On Friday night he owed no money for her maintenance. It had all been paid up. He went aboard the Awatea with a wellknown Auckland solicitor and two other friends to see the solicitor's mother off. He had not either applied for or purchased a steamer ticket to Sydney. As he was almost at the foot of the vessel's gangway to return home he was arrested on his wife's complaint. He had no intention of leaving the country. His car was on the wharf and if the police constable had watched where he went he would have seen him go home. He protested 4,0 the constable that he was not going away, but he was taken to the police station and lodged in the cells. There he spent Friday night Though a friend was present'and offered to put up £100 cash as bail, he (was not allowed bail. His coat, collar," and tie were taken from him. He had no redress at all,, despite the fact.that he was an innocent citizen. I am mentioning these facts as it has got around the town that my client was'arrested," Mr. Turner said. It was his respectful contention that such a state of [affairs showed that it was within the power of any irresponsible woman or wife to take private action against her husband to cause the arbitrary arrest of an entirely innocent man who had no redress. Mr. Fawcett, appearing for the wife,' said that the defendant had contemplated going to Australia at one time, and his wife thought he was going. Mr. Wyvern Wilson said the wife had sworn an information before a Magistrate on Friday that she had reasonable grounds for supposing her husband was leaving- New Zealand. "He was arrested, and now she does not want to go on with the case," he ■ said. - "If '• her statements are untrue and she had no reasonable grounds for saying what she did, an action for damages can be brought against her, but this is a case of husband and wife. .The information is.dismissed for want of prosecution." / Referring to counsel's complaint that the defendant could not be dealt with on Saturday morning because a Magisthat was not available, Mr..Wilson said the court was closed on Saturdays. That was one of the effects of the 40----hour week. The Magistrate made no pronouncement about the other matters; raised by Mr. Turner, and told him he could carry it no further.