GAMING BREACHES

Evening Star, Issue 25700, 25 January 1946, Page 4

GAMING BREACHES

FINES NO DETERRENT SCHEME TO LEGALISE BOOKMAKING (P.A.) WHANGAREI, Jan. 25. M. Harley, S.M., sentenced Ronald Joseph Miller to seven days and Jack Edward Manning to 14 days' imprisonment in the Kawakawa Court on charges of using premises' as common gaming houses./ Detective Mahood said that he found betting in progress on Saturday. Miller was before the court on a similar charge in November, 1944, and fined £lO. Manning had appeared for two previous breaches, the second in July fast year, when he was fined £2O. Mr Stubbs, for both the accused, admitted that the law had been broken, but said that that was happening every day among thousands of people. Miller, by arrangement with an Australian racing authority,- had worked out a series of proposals to place bookmakers on a legal footing in New Zealand. These proposals had been forwarded to the Minister of Internal Affairs, who had replied in a personal letter. , , The Magistrate said it had been proved conclusively to him that fining did no good, and he could see no sense in inflicting further penalties of that nature. Gaol sentences "should serve to warn the accused that, whatever attitude the Minister might adopt on the licensing laws, the courts still regarded them as being on the Statute Book, and would continue to enforce them.