BOOKMAKER GAOLED

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 November 1944, Page 2

BOOKMAKER GAOLED

JUDGE AND P. & T. DEPT.

AID -TO LAWBREAKERS CHRISTCHURCH, November 6. “This case has shown that an important department of the State, the Post and Telegraph Dept., has assisted youi’ criminal business, and your intercourse with those 570 lawbreakers, who did business with you. Your business must have come to a complete stop—it just couldn’t have gone on —without the services of the Post Office,” said Mr. Justice Northcroft, in the Supreme Court, this morning, sentencing Arthur Leonard Albertson, to 12 months’ hard labour for carrying on the business of a bookmaker. “The P. and T. Dept, allowed you for your criminal purposes three telephones, two post office boxes and a telegraph code address,” continued His Honor. “It handled all your very large postal telephonic and telegraphic traffic. It must have known yours was a bookmaking business, and that it was actively assisting m it by serving as a go-between of you and" your customers.” Addressing Albertson His Honor said: ’“ln your case alone it Was shown that you have been doing business with at least 570 bettors. But yours is by no means the only bookmaking business in the country. It was shown that this illegal business is sufficiently extensive and bookmakers'so numerous that they, have banded themselves into an organisation for their mutual benefit, an organisation by the way which they have the impudence to call ‘Sportsmen’s Association.’ The character and activities of this Association were not disclosed, but it is a grave danger to the community to have an extensive underground organisation,- the purpose of which is to promote and protect the breaking of the law.” ~ “More serious than'a break of the low was the bringing of, law into disregard or into contempt,” continued His Honor. “The very prosperity of lhe bookmaking business, was founded upon its affording opportunities if not inducements to bettors to break the law.” , , .x “The state of the law, whether it was wise or unwise, fair or unfair,, in step or out of step with public opinion, was a matter for Parliament and the Government,” His Honor .saia. “The taking of measures to break up the underground network of bookmakers and to prevent breaches ol the law by use of its post offices, its telegraphs and its telephones, again was a matter for Parliament or the Government. Nevertheless, THE COURTS HAD A DUTY to draw public attention to the evidence before them of widespread law breaking and of the facilities, especially Governmental facilities, for perpetration of those offences. Albertson had been convicted on the clearest evidence. He had carried on a ci iminal business in a very large way. In the period from January 8 to July 29 last, he had paid out to successful gamblers no less a sum than £IJ,J7o. The total volume of his business must have been very large indeed. He haa undertaken this criminal business de- | liberately and for profit to enrich himself by crime. Albertson s record showed that he had been a bookmaker since 1933, and that he had been, fined on four separate occasions £5O, £5O, £75, and £lOO. “Having regard to the extent and profitable nature of your business it N not lim'd to understand why fines imposed on you have proved no dele>, ent, His Honor told Albertson. To fine a bookmaker, even the maximum amount of £5OO is to do no more than to take a small proportion of hi? illicit earnings by way of tribute Punishment must prevent or at least should deter. Fines for bookmakers are inept and futile. One might as well fire a child’s pop gun at a pack ol wolves. To those disposed to engage in this unlawful but highly profitable business, imprisonment is the only deterrent,” concluded His Honor.