FINE OF £300

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26241, 27 August 1946, Page 2

FINE OF £3OO

CHARGE OF BOOKMAKING TWO TELEPHONES IN OFFICE On a charge of bookmaking, to which he pleaded guilty, William Halsey Stewart, aged 32, was fined £3OO by Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday morning. The magistrate expresesd surprise that two telephones should have been found in the office in which the accused conducted his business. Chief Detective T. Y. Hall, who prosecuted. said that Detective Sergeant McD. Brown and two other detectives visited the office occupied by the accused in Rattray street on Saturday. August 17, at 11.30 a.m. The accused was at a. table on which were two telephones. The accused was doing a brisk business, and there was a good deal of betting material relating to straight-out bets, doubles and “ picks.” The straight-out betting amounted to £ll9 7s, the double betting to £2OO 7s, and the “picks” to £ll3 14s. The accused, Mr Hall added, had been before the court on bookmaking charges previously, the last occasion for advertising a double chart. . Mr A. G. Neill, who appeared for the accused, said the betting material found in the accused’s office did not relate to August 17 alone, but was in respect of the three days of the Canterbury Jockey Club’s meeting. Counsel explained that the accused had been fined £125 on a charge of bookmaking and had also been fined for assisting in the conduct of a gaming house and for publishing totalisator odds. Mr Neill asked the court to accept the explanation that the large amount of betting busines revealed in the, material found by the detectives was due to the fact that the transactions had been spread over three days. The chief detective said the police did not accept that explanation. He thought it was unlikely that a man like the accused would have betting slips relating to previous days’ racing in his office.

The magistrate commented that it seemed extraordinary that the accused had two telephones in his office. In imposing a fine of £3OO with costs (10s) the magistrate said he would fix immediate default at two months’ imprisonment in the Dunedin Prison, the warrant not to be executed for three days.