PIGS THAT VANISHED

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 64, 13 September 1945, Page 6

PIGS THAT VANISHED

BUTCHERY PROSECUTED

p.A. HASTINGS, September 12. The alleged finding, and disappearance shortly afterwards, of five porker carcasses from the butchery premises of J. B. Fletcher, Ltd., in Heretaunga Street, Hastings, on May 24, had its sequel in the Magistrate's Court in Hastings yesterday when the company was charged with an indictable offence, acting with intent to commit a'breach of the pork restrictions order, 1943. A D M. G. Laing, Government veterinarian at Hastings, and inspector under the Meat Act, stated that he saw the carcasses in the chiller at the defendant firm's shop. The carcases had not been properly inspected and none of the lymph glands had been cut out. If the pigs had been slaughtered in an abattoir the glands would have been cut for examination for tuberculosis infection. He saw six stamps on each carcass, on the usual places, but the stamp was not the stamp of the Hastings abattoir and had certain important differences. The witness decided to condemn the carcasses. He went to the police station, but before leaving he gave instructions that the carcasses were to be held. When he returned with two detectives the carcasses were not there, the manager saying he had been very busy in the front shop and did not know anything about the matter. They then called on J. B. Fletcher at his house. The latter said he knew nothing about porker carcasses being on his premises. Other evidence was called by the prosecution to show that the defendant company received sufficient pork through the proper channels to enable it to fulfill its hospital contract for the supply of pork without resorting to the five carcasses. A plea of not guilty was returned and the defendant company was committed for trial.