POLICE COURT NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17461, 4 May 1920, Page 6

POLICE COURT NEWS.

BOOKMAKING AT ELLERSLIE.

ONE OFFENDER FINED £30.

A charge of boo'imakin.? at the Ellerslie racecourse on Easter Monday was preferred against John Dominie Moran (Mr. J. J. Sullivan), in the Police Court, before Mr. J. E. Wilson, S.M., yesterday.

The evidence for the prosecution was to the effect that the accused was seen in the outside enclosure receiving money, making entries in a ratebook and paying out. Those who gave him money included women as well as men. Plain-clothes Constable Mciklejohn obtained possession of the racebook, the accused saying to him that the entries therein referred to money he had shared with other people on the j totalisator. On _ general occasions, how- j ever, he had been seen taking money after I the machine had closed, and he had not been observed going to the totalizator himself. Accused had £85 18s in notes and silver in his possession. The defence took the form of an absolute' denial. 'Dae magistrate imposed a fine of £30, with coste £1 7s 6d.

A charge against Frederick Smith (Mr. Sullivan) of bookmaking at the races on the same day was dismissed.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARGES. The theft of two saoks of apples, from the orchard of W. H. Jones, at Birkenhead, on April. 3, was admitted by two brothers, Albert and Arthur Fenton. It was stated that Mr. Jones, having found a sack filled with apples in the orchard, waited with a policeman for the men to dppear. One of them was heard to remark that it as a pity they did not visit the orchard when the plums were ripe. Each man was (bed £3. For selling cigarettes on a Sunday, Susannah Bowman and Mary Moore were each fined 10s. _ Charges were made against several men in connection with brawls in Queen Street on Saturday evening. Eugene Patrick Cooney. John Thomas Burgees. Robert Smith, and David Thompson were each fined £1.