YOUTH CENSURED

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 80, 1 October 1940, Page 9

YOUTH CENSURED

OBTAINING OF LIQUOR

SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED

LICENSING PRACTICE

The opinion that the police should at once investigate the administration of the licensing laws in the Stratford district was expressed in the Supreme Court today by Mr.. Justice Ostler, when he admitted James Ronald Hugh Morrieson, an 18-year-old student, to two years' probation for failing to stop after an. accident. His Honour was commenting on the fact that the prisoner had been able to obtain two dozen bottles of beer from a brewery on credit, and said the facts connected with the case disclosed a disgraceful state of affairs.

Mr. R. J. O rDea, of Hawera, who appeared for the prisoner, said there had been a complete absence of wrongful intent: although the prisoner went on he did so in complete ignorance of the fact that anyone had been injured. He stopped in the next street —a matter of about two hundred yards—and spent about half an hour walking in the main street of Stratford. When he saw a newspaper report of the accident, he went straight to the police. The one disturbing feature about the case was that some liquor had been consumed by the prisoner and the other persons in the car that night. Morrieson had borne- a good character and probation was recommended in the probation officer's reoprt.

"The facts connected with your case disclose a disgraceful state of affairs," said his Honour to the prisoner. "Here are you, a boy of only 18 years of age; you are not earning a penny, and are apparently living on the charity of your mother, and yet you seem to be able to own a motor-car. I don't know whether you actually own it, but you have the use of it, and in these days of shortage of petrol you seem to have petrol to go to dances. BEER CHARGED UP. "That is not so bad," continued his Honour, "but here are you, a boy of 18, able to go to a brewery and buy two dozen bottles of beer, and not even pay for it—they take this order and book it to a boy like you. It seems to me that there is something wrong with the administration of the licensing law in your part of the world, and it seems to me to be th*» duty of the police to find out how a boy is able to obtain two dozen bottles of beer on credit—l think the police ought at once to take in hand an investigation of that. "That is beside the point. Having supplied yourself with this beer and picked up a car full of young bloods of your own age you go to a dance, drinking on the way. What right have you to do that? What would your mother think? You go to a dance and then drive off without lights; you feel a bump and haven't the moral courage to stop and see whether you have hit something.

"You don't deserve much leniency at all. You are a university student hoping to get a degree, and you ought to be one of the young felows setting an example in the country instead of behaving like that. Solely on the ground of your youth I propose to accept the recommendation of the probation officer and grant you probation." Apart from the usual conditions of probation the prisoner was ordered not to attend dances and. not to be out after 8 p.m., and to pay the costs, £4 8s lid. His licence was cancelled and he was prohibited from driving for two years.

Mr. W. R. Birks appeared for the Crown.