COURTS AND OFFENCES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 7 November 1927, Page 9

COURTS AND OFFENCES.

CAUGHT IN HOTEL BEDROOM,

(BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 7.

■Charles Thomas Batkin was caught ransacking bedrooms in the Racecourse Hotel at Riccartou on Saturday afternoon and ivas nekl till the police arrived. To-day he was sentenced to twelve months’ reformative treatment on a charge of theft, the police stating that he had been previously convicted in 1916.

HEAVY FINE IMPOSED

WELLINGTON, Nov. 7

A warning that he intends to inflict uniformly heavy penalties on drunken motorists was given by Mr. Salmon, S.M., to-day, when Marius Paterson admitted being intoxiexated while in charge of his motor-ear on the Wellington Road, Hataitai, early last evening. A sub-inspector said that the car was standing on the side of the road. With the defendant was a, woman, who was equally drunk, and who had been previously fined for that offence. Counsel for the accused said that the accused had been on a week-end visit to Palmerston North and had fallen in with a. party of friends. He had been wise enough not to drive back to Wellington himself. The Magistrate: “In this class ol case I am going to be consistent and impose heavy fines, as well as order the cancellation of licenses. A fine of £2O will be imposed, and the accused’s license will be cancelled till March, 1929.