REAR-ADMIRAL FINED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22172, 27 July 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

REAR-ADMIRAL FINED

ROAD SIGN THROWN IN RIVER Engineer Rear-Admiral George Whittle Phillips, C.8.E., for whom a warrant was issued it Alchester Police Court, and who was Inter arrested in London, was at Alchest;r fined £4 on each of three charges, £l2 in all, for wilfully damaging motor traffic signs. He was ordered to pay 15 guineas costs and damages. Rear-Admiral Phillips, who gave an address at the Grand Spa Hotel, Bristol, pleadel guilty when he entered the dock. Mr. R. VI. Willis, clerk to the Warwickshire County Council, prosecuting for the pclice, said the defendant was driving a car in the district on Sunday, March 24, and pulled down three 30 miles an hour speed limit signs. He had cost the county a considerable amount of time and money in investigations. A serious aspect was that as a result of ;he signs being pulled down motorists did not know whether they were in a rontrolled area or not. A Bristol policeman said when ho asked the Admiral if he was driving a car in the Stratford-on-Avon district on March 24, ho replied, "Yes; I was. What do you want me to do —put the signs bacli P I don't admit anything, but between ourselves I had a good time that day; pulled down any amount of signs, and threw one into tho river Avon." Mr. G. Coleridge, for the Admiral, said he did not desire to avoid the consequences of his action. He pleaded guilty to what was a stupid, childish and gross act of folly, and desired to tender his most sincero apologies/