SELLING UNCUSTOMED TOBACCO COSTS TEACHER £25

Grey River Argus, 20 January 1948, Page 2

SELLING UNCUSTOMED TOBACCO COSTS TEACHER £25

P.A. NAPIER, Jan. 19. A school teacher who was stated have evaded the payment of duty on tobacco he had sold was convicted and fined £25 by Mr L. G. Sinclair, S.M., in the Police Court this afterThe defendant was Karl Topham Hansen, of Raupunga, who vyas charged with receiving and selling 108 pounds of manufactured tobacco valued at £Bl with intent to defraud the Customs Department by evading the payment of duty. It was stated by Mr L. W. Willis, for the department, that inquiries first had been made following the conviction of a man named Lusty, of Upper Moutere, Nelson, for growing manufacturing tobacco without a licence. The police had searched Lusty’s premises and they found ■ a number of letters apparently written by the defendant referring to the supply of tobacco. When interviewed by the police, said Mr Willis, Hansen admitted receiving the tobacco and disposing of it to friends and relatives at cost price.

The evidence for the prosecution showed that Hansen sold the tobacco for 12s 6d a .pound ,and that unpaid duty totalled £63. Defendant, in evidence, said that about half the tobacco was unsaleable and had been destroyed. He was out of pocket to the extent of £2B in relation to the deal. It never occurred to him that the tobacco dispatched by Lusty was possibly uncustomed.

Imposing the fine the Magistrate commented that an innocent man would have been expected to wash his hands of the whole matter, and neither receive the tobacco nor dispose of it.