CURFEW IMPOSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22327, 30 July 1934, Page 8

CURFEW IMPOSED

CONDITION OF PROBATION FOUR COMMUNISTS SENTENCED (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, July 28. The unusual course of imposing the curfew on Communists was taken by the magistrate, Air Wyvern Wilson, at the conclusion of the hearing of charges against four men arising out of an attempted street meeting in Newton. The men were Lewis Williams, aged 30, Alexander .Drennan, aged 34, Sidney William Scott, aged 34. and Henry Mornington Smith, aged 30. The magistrate said that Drennan and Scott were move seriously involved than the others. These two had made up their minds to defy authority, and had been guilty of conduct likely to incite and inflame the feeling of the people against the police. “ I am going to take steps to ensure that none of these four takes part in such gatherings for some time,”_ said the magistrate, who sentenced Williams and Scott to seven days in gaol for inciting, and admitted them to probation for one year for obstructing the police. He made a special condition of the probation that for the first three months after their release they must not be out at night from their homes after 7 o’clock. Ho sentenced Drennan and Smith to three months in gaol for inciting, this sentence to be followed by two years’ probation, with the curfew provision for the first six months after release. Sentences on the charge of holding an illegal meeting wore postponed.