MILITARY DEFAULTER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21093, 13 May 1943, Page 6

MILITARY DEFAULTER

REMOVED FROM COURT

A dramatic appeal to the ueity was made in the dock by Dudley Raymond Masefield, aged 4t>, a commercial traveller, when he was convicted by Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M.. in the Dunedin Police Court on a charge of failure to report for military service. The only result was his forcible removal from the court by two constables.

Masefield, when asked to plead, admitted that he had been called up arid had not reported, but denied that he was guilty of having done anything wrong. He had, he said, been searching to find the real purpose of life, and had acted as he had clone because he considered he had a greater service to his God than to his country. He had appealed on conscientious grounds, but this appeal had been dismissed and a rehearing refused.

The Magistrate: If there were many like you it would need an army to look after them. You are sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, thereafter 'to be detained in the military detention camp for the duration of Ihe war.

Masefield: I want an opportunity to say why I did not go to camp. I have not had a chance to do that. The Magistrate: You have already explained. Stand down. The defendant (loudly): “No!’’ Raising his hand, he cried: “I call on the Lord Jesus,” and he continued to invoke Divine aid until removed, struggling, from the court.