INDECENT WORDS

Grey River Argus, 10 September 1941, Page 6

INDECENT WORDS

A POLICE APPEAL. PROVES SUCCESSFUL. PA DUNEDIN, Sept. 8. Mr Justice Kennedy delivered iudgment this morning m an a cal by Adam Mackie, a police constable, against the decision of a Magistrate on a point of law in convicting Charles James Eccles on a cnarge oi [ sending a telephoned message of an offensive nature, and dismissing a I charge brought against him of using indecent language in a public place. His Honour set aside the dismissal. He said the Magistrate found that the defendant had used the telephone in the public cabinet at the corner of Arthur and Rattray Streets for a conversation with Miss X at a certain hospital, such conversation being indecent. He was unable to find that any member of the public could have heard the indecent words used. He held that there was not sufficient evidence to justify him in holding indecent words used by the defendant were, or could have been, heard by any person in a public place. His Honour said the only question was: Did the defendant use indecent language in a public place ? Usually this could be proved only by calling witnesses present in the public place who heard the language used; but in the peculiar circumstances of this case this was proved, although no nerson in a public street actually heard the indecent language. The words uttered in the oublic place were heard elsewhere because they were telephoned. “This determines the question of law,” said His Honour. “At the hearing, however, it was submitted that by convicting on the second charge the learned Magistrate had disposed of the whole matter, and that to remit the case to him with a direction to convict on the first charge would result in the defendant being punished twice for the same offence. There is, in my view, no foundation for this submission. The two offences are separate and distinct offences, and a conviction for one does not preclude a conviction for the other. The dismissal of the first information is set aside. The matter is remitted to the learned Magistrate with the ooinion of the Court that the offence charged is constituted by use of indecent language in a nublic place, and with a direction to dispose of the matter in accordance with this ooinion.”