SIX MONTHS' GAOL

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 98, 22 October 1940, Page 10

SIX MONTHS' GAOL

A SUBVERSIVE TONGUE

GANGER ON RAILWAYS

I (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Three months' imprisonment on each of two charges of making subversive statements, the sentences to be cumulative, was the penalty imposed on William Edward John Aitken, married, aged 39, by the Magistrate, Mr. Levvey, today. The charges related to statements made by Aitken declaring that he did . not care if the British got beaten. He would just as soon be under Hitler, and would rather fight for the Nazis than the British. \ The prosecution said that Aitken was a ganger in charge of four men working in the Lyttelton tunnel. Over a long period he had made statements about the Royal Family and Germans. i Evidence of repeated statements made by Aitken was given by railway servicemen, who said that when the Duke of Gloucester was wounded, Aitken said: "It is a pity the — was not blown to pieces." In a statement to the police Aitken said the statements were not made j seriously. Counsel for the defence urged that the statements were made in the course of argument, and were not made seriously. He submitted that they would not endanger the public safety or disrupt the morale of the civil population. The Magistrate said that the Court had no difficulty in finding that the statements were a breach of the regulations.