BREACHES OF GAMING ACT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 89, 30 March 1932, Page 7

BREACHES OF GAMING ACT

THREE MEN FINED. By Telegraph—Press Association Wellington, March 30. Following their arrest yesterday, Thomas Fisher, aged 47, Edward George Munns, alias Jim O’Malley, aged 42, James Carson, aged 54, and James O’Hanlon, aged 57, were charged before Mr. Woodward, S.M., to-day with various offences against the Gaming Act. Fisher pleaded guilty to bookmaking, and the police urged that he must be in a big way, but this was 'denied by counsel, who said that 31 bets would have aggregated somewhere about £3OO, and not £3B, if that were the case.

Munns also pleaded guilty to bookmaking. It was stated that he had been carrying on for some years and that his notebook showed that he had taken 492 bets, mostly of 5/- and 10/-. He told the police that he was the agent for a larger bookmaker, and that was so in 1930, when ho was convicted for bookmaking. The police were not hire if he was still an agent on account of his having a large sum in him; if he had been an agent there would have been no need for him to wait for the banks to open. He was married, with eleven children and his character was good.

Mr. Woodward said ho was bound to uphold rhe law and fined Fi’irr £lOO. in default two months’ imprisonment. Munns was fined £2OO, in default four months’ imprisonment. Time was allowed to pay. Carson, a barman, was fined £2O for using the bar of the Forresters’ Arms Hotel for the purpose of betting, in default one month’s imprisonment. Hanlon, another barman, pleaded not guilty to using the bar of the Royal Oak Hotel for the purpose of betting, and wad remanded.