BUTCHER FINED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26026, 14 December 1945, Page 6

BUTCHER FINED

- MEAT RATIONING BREACHES PRIVATE SLAUGHTERHOUSE CASE (Special) WELLINGTON, Dec. 13. A butcher was fined in the Magistrate’s Court at Pahiatua to-day for breaches of the Rationing Regulations, this being the first time that a butcher who kills at his own slaughterhouse to supply his own shop has been convicted of such offences. The defendant was Hugh Gibson Kirby-Taylor, trading as A. Harrison and Co., retail butchers. For making material omissions in certificates furnished to the Rationing Controller, the defendant was fined £25, and for supplying meat without an authority or permit he was fined £ 10. He was convicted without penalty on a charge of acquiring meat without an authority. He pleaded guilty to the charges. For the prosecution it was explained that the defendant operated a rural slaughterhouse and killed meat for sale exclusively in his own shop. His returns to the Department of Agriculture showed a greater amount of meat killed than was recorded in his returns to the Rationing Controller. Between April 20 and July 24 he killed 13,0001 b more than was accounted for to the Rationing Controller. Mr K. N. Struthers, for the'-defend-ant, said the offences were committed inadvertently as. a result of ignorance, shortage of staff, and sickness in the family. ’