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Otago Daily Times, Issue 20418, 26 May 1928, Page 2

UNKNOWN

PUBLICATION LEGITIMATE. CHARGES AGAINST PROPRIETOR DISMISSED. In tbe City Police Court yesterday, Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., gave his decision in the case in w-hich Francis Joseph Haywood, for whom Mr C. J. L. White appeared, was charged with having published a document purporting to be a programme of trotting events to be held at Forbury Park on May 5 without express license in that behalf from the Forbury Park Trotting Club. He was also charged with having circulated a document purporting to be a programme of trotting events to be held at Forbury Park on May 5 without express license from the Forbury Park Trotting Club, an association of persons having the management and control thereof. His Worship said the facts were not seriously in dispute. The defendant was the publisher of a publication known as the Southern Sporting Guide, which had been published at irregular intervals since May 4, 1927. The issue of May 4, 1928, was the one to which exception had been taken, and in respect of which the charge had been laid. It was claimed by the prosecution that that issue purported to be a programme of events to be decided at the Forbury Park Trotting Club’s meeting on May 6. At first sight it -was extremely difficult to see any resemblance between the Guide and the Forbury Park Trotting Club’s official programme, the size, colour, and general appearance of the two being quite separate. The Sporting Guide gave a correct list of the acceptances for the trotting events on May 5, but this was only one of its features. The question to be decided was whether the inclusion of a list of acceptances made the document a programme. He did not think it did. If the document purported to do anything, it purported to give racing information to a gullible public. Each charge would be dismissed.