“HOKONUI” SALE LEADS TO GAOL FOR 14 DAYS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23154, 17 January 1950, Page 3

“HOKONUI” SALE LEADS TO GAOL FOR 14 DAYS

(P.A ) WELLINGTON, Jan. 17. William Marshall Ramsden, a salesman, aged 49 years, was sentenced by Mr. J. Hassall S.M., yesterday to 14 days’ imprisonment for unlawfully selling liquor containing 110 per cent proof spirit.

The police stated that the accused aonroached two men in an hotel on October 26. saying that he had a quantity if iiouor for sale at £3/15/- a gallon. The men accompanied the accused to Ngahauranga where they purchased 16 gallons for £52. Later the men considered the matter and decided to report it to the police to whom they handed over the liquor. The accused was apprehended as he was endeavouring to cash the cheque the men gave? him. The accused had admitted the sale. The liauor contained one and a half times more alcohol than did bottled whiskv. Counsel for the accused said that he had bought the liquor from another source and had endeavoured to make the sale purely as a business transaction. The prosecuting detective told the magistrate that the sale of “Hokonui was prevalent throughout the country. A case was pending in Blenheim as the result of a large quantity being seized in the Sounds. The accused s sampled had been quite good, but the liauor in bulk had been "putrid.” The magistrate said that a great deal of harm could come from such offences. In sentencing the _ accused _to only 14 days he was taking into consideration the fact that the accused had not been in trouble for six years.