RIOTERS’ APPEALS

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 July 1932, Page 10

RIOTERS’ APPEALS

SUPREME COURT PROCEEDINGS [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, July 7. ' The hearing of the appeal of Thomas Thomson against the sentence imposed on him by Mr Page, S.M., after the disturbance in Cuba Street on May 11 last, was continued at the Supreme Court to-day before Mr Justice Blair. When the evidence was concluded in Thomson’s case, the Court proceeded to hear a similar appeal by Mervyn George Berry, who was sentenced to 12 months’ for having been found in possession of a stone knotted in a handkerchief. At the conclusion of the evidence in this case, the Court adjourned. The hearing will be concluded to-morrow, when counsel will address the Court on the legal aspects of the case. SPECIAL CONSTABLES. A JUDGE’S QUERY. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, July 7. “I can’t understand this hostility to special constables,” remarked Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court today, during the hearing of the appeal by Mervyn George Berry, against the sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment imposed on him by a Magistrate for having been found in possession'of an . offensive weapon. The case arose out of the May riots. Harry Clifton Berry, brother of the appellant, a carrier, formerly of Auckland said that when his brother picked up the stone he told him to put it down and not to be a fool. Counsel: Does your brother belong to the Communist Party? Witness: I’ll bet my shirt he doesn’t! He hates them like poison! The Crown Prosecutor: Were you hostile to. the special constables? — Yes. And a detective told you to go home? —Yes. And you said: ‘I can’t help it! It’s born in me! My father was a striker! —'Well, there’s no harm in that! His Honor: I don’t understand this hostility to special constables. What Grave they done that they should not do? Witness: I can’t understand myself, sir. . His Honor: What’s wrong with the special constables? —-There’s nothing wrong with them! His Honor: I can’t understand th's hostility to the special constables. I would like to know what they have done. Counsel for appellant: No one seems to understand it, sir. Perhaps a psychologist could tell us.