POLICE COURT

Evening Star, Issue 25173, 12 May 1944, Page 2

POLICE COURT

» FEID.4Y MAY 12. (Before Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M.) DRUNKENNESS. A first offender for drunkenness was fined the amount of his bail (20s). ALLEGED DEFAULTER. Lawrence Desmond Stephens, a ship's fireman, aged 27, for whom Mr O. G. Stevens appeared, pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to report when called up for service with the armed forces. Senior-sergeant. Black said that when Stephens had been originally called up an appeal was lodged by the Union Steam Ship Company, and this appeal had been adjourned sine die. Subsequently the defendant had been discharged owing to his having refused duty while serving on an overseas vessel, and the company s appeal was then withdrawn. Defendant had then been ordered to report at Wellington on March 29 last, but had failed to do bo. He was arrested in Dunedin on May 5. Lieutenant P. F. Harre, assistant records officer, explained the procedure connected with notifications of change of address, and said that if the defendant had notified his change of address to the National Service Department the information would have been passed' on to the Army Department in the area to which the defendant had moved. The Army here had no such record. A letter had been received from defendant's father, however, in which he said that he did not know his son's whereabouts, but understood he was in the mercantile marine. ... Defendant said that he onginahy volunteered for the Army, but had applied for transfer to the Navy, but was not accepted. He had then gone to sea. He had. in March, 1943, notified the National Service Department in Wellington of his change of address to Moray Place, Dunedin, end, except for a period when he was again at sea, he had lived there and had been working in Dunedin. He admitted having received .a notification of the withdrawal of the Union Company's appeal. After his discharge in April, 1943, he had continued to serve on the company's ships until December last. He had no objection to serving with the forces. The hearing was adjourned till May 26 to enable further information to be obtained from Wellington concerning the notification of change of addrDSS which defendant stated he had made.