UNUSUAL CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 6

UNUSUAL CHARGE

"He has tried pretty well eyerything else before he tried this," said Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today in looking at the list of previous convictions of Harold Newman,' 43, labourer and showman, whom he sentenced ■to fourteen days' imprisonment with hard labour for keeping intoxicating liquor «for sale without being authorised by law to sell it. Newman pleaded not guilty, and Mr. G. C. Kent appeared for him. Senior-Sergeant G. J. Paine said this was the first time this charge had been laid in Wellington.

The police evidence was that Newman approached two American servicemen in Dixon Street one Friday night, and in Egmont Street he offered to sell them a bottle of whisky for sixteen dollars. One of the servicemen was a member of the military police who was off duty at the time and he and the other servicemen took Newman a few yards out of Egmont Street into Dixon Street, where they turned him over to Sergeant L. Nicol. Newman's evidence was that he had bought the whisky at a hotal for £4 for his own use. He had serious stomach trouble and whisky was the only thing that seemed to ease it. The Americans asked him for the whisky and they took it from his pocket though he did not want to sell it. "I have no reason for disbelieving the evidence of the two servicemen," said the Magistrate. "I have no doubt this man endeavoured to sell the whisky and make a commission on it."