COURT NEWS

Grey River Argus, 15 February 1938, Page 2

COURT NEWS

[Per Press Association]. AUCKLAND, February 14. As a sequel to the raid on a gambling school in Queen’s Arcade on Friday night, when one man escaped by making a sensational leap, 28 men were charged in the Police Court this morning with a breach of the Gaming Act. James Joyce, labourer, for using the premises as a common gaming house, was fined £25. Twentyseven other men, charged with being found on the premises, were fined from £2 to £5 each. NAPIER, February 14. The number of sexual charges coming before the Supreme Court at Napier during the present session was deplored by Mr Justice Blair, in his address to the Grand Jury this morning. Altogether, there are eleven cases on the criminal list, half of which are of a sexual nature. Of the other charges, the outstanding case is one of negligent driving, causing death, a sequel to a collision at Hastings. The Judge remarked that accused was apparently .in the wrong in not giving way to a lighter car approaching from the right, the driver of which was killed. Accused’s car continued for' 70 feet after the collision, and crashed through a low concrete fence. WANGANUI, February 14. Cecil Stanley Hall, 23, salesman, of Palmerston North, who pleaded guilty to failing to stop after an accident with another car near Kaitoke early on the morning of November 28, was fined £l2 by Mr Justice Reed in the Supreme Court, with the costs of the prosecution £l3, in default three months’ imprisonment. His license was cancelled until the end of the present term, and he was prohibited from applying for a new license for six months after that date. His Honour pointed out that Hall was liable to a fine of £5OO, or a term of imprisonment for five years.

Fortunately, the damage was confin-' ed to the motor vehicle and some of its contents. Had there, been injury to some persons in the car he would have had’no hesitation in sentencing Hall to imprisonment. I - WELLINGTON, February 14.. | Following a plea of guilty by William Mcßeynolds, ship’s fireman, .29, to a charge of being found in posses- ( sion of housebreaking instruments, by night, fit Paraparaumu, on Novem-i ber 17. the Crown, in the Supreme| Court, to-das, withdrew the case against William Henry Roberts, a cleaner, 54, and Stuart Aldred, taxidriver, 32, who wave jointly charged

■ with Mcßeynolds. Roberts and Al- ! dred were discharged, after a formal r yerdict of not guilty was returned by I the jury, and Mcßeynolds was sen- ; fenced by Sir Michael Myers to I eighteen months’ hard labour, to be j concurrent with the sentence of three , years’ imprisonment, with hard labour , to which Mcßeynolds was sentenced on Friday, for breaking, entering and ,' theft