PETROL SAVING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 52, 29 August 1941, Page 6

PETROL SAVING

PUBLIC MUST HELP -.

WARNING IN COURT

DEALER'S OFFENCES

"I hope that, this case will impress upon the public the necessity of co-operation with the petrol dealers and the realisation that the petrol restriction is not just something for the purpose of restricting but something necessary for public safety. All these regulations would be easy to carry out if there were public co-operation. People who resent restriction are going to make it difficult for themselves and difficult for the authorities." ~ J

This warning was given by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today in convicting Robert Paul, Tungatt, a petrol service station proprietor, on three charges of making false statements to the Oil Fuel Controller, to which Tungatt pleaded guilty. Sub-Inspector E. P. Lambert said th J Tungatt had a service station on the Hutt Road. A man named Martin had a licence to obtain from him 150 gallons a month but he closed his carrying business and Tungatt retained and used his licence, signing Martin's name on it. He had previously been fined and warned for breaches of the oil fuel regulations. .- , Mr. R. Hardie Boys said that Tungatt first used Martin's licence illegally to make up an honestly unaccountable shortage. He had bought the business just before the restrictions and had mortgaged everything to do so. He had tragic domestic trouble and: at times was worried until he was almost driven mad. His , customers worried him for extra petrol and he gave way to them, using Martin's licence.

PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY.

The Magistrate said that there, was no doubt that some members of , the public were not co-operating, and some were more or less torpedoing the regulations, and he thought it true that heavy pressure was brought to bear on petrol sellers by the public. "The Government has decreed that petrol must be rationed," said the Magistrate/Petrol sellers were trustees of public property just as much as bankers, for example, and they should discharge their trust faithfully and well. Here was a case in which the evidence disclosed that over a period of 15 months the petrol dealer had drawn on a licence, which was not being used by the licensee, for 1727 gallons and had filled in the name of the licensee as having bought* it. It was a case of deliberate forgery and a breach of trust, which in spite of the individual, circumstances in which the dealer found himself, could only be punished by a term of imprisonment as a warning to other dealers. v Mr. Boys then applied for a postponement of sentence so that arrangements could be made for Tungatt's customers who could get petrol only from him to transfer their licences, and the Magistrate remanded Tungatt for a week for sentence.