PORK RESTRICTIONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21816, 12 September 1945, Page 7

PORK RESTRICTIONS

BREACH ALLEGED HASTINGS PROSECUTION (P.A.) HASTINGS, Sept. 12. The alleged finding and disappearance shortly afterwards of five porker pig carcases from the butchery premises of J. B. Fletcher, Limited, in Heretaunga street, Hastings, on May 24 last had a sequel in the Magistrate’s Court in Hastings yesterday when the company was charged with an indictable offence, of acting with intent to commit a breach of the pork restrictions order, 1943.

A. D M. G. Laing, Government veterinarian, Hastings, and an inspector under the Meat Act, stated that he saw the carcases in a chiller at the defendant firm’s shop. The carcases had not been properly inspected. None of the lymph glands had been cut. If the pigs had been slaughtered in the abattoir the glands would have been mcised for examination for tuberculosis infection. The witness said he saw six stamps on each carcase on the usual places where the carcases were stamped at the abattoir, but the stamp was not the stamp of the Hastings abattoir and had certain important differences. | The witness decided to condemn the carcases. He went to the police station but before leaving he gave instructions for the carcases to be held. When he returned with two detectives the carcases were not there, the manager saying that He had been very busy in the front of the shon and he did not know anything about the matter. They then called on J. B. Fletcher at his house. The latter said he knew nothing about porker pig carcases being on his premises.

Evidence was called by the prosecution to show that the defendant company received sufficient pork through the proper channels to enable it to fulfill its hospital contract for the supply of pork without resorting to the five porker pigs. On entering a plea of not guilty, the defendant company was committed for trial at the next session of the Supreme Court in NenW.