SHIP DELAYED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 10

SHIP DELAYED

ATTEMPTED DESERTION FIVE OF CREW CHARGED Five members of the crew of the British steamer Glenpark decided that they would quit the ship on Tuesday as she was about to pull out from her berth at Dunedin en route for Australia. They tossed their belongings on to the wharf and scaled down the ropes, but were soon arrested. The men appeared in the City Police Court yesterday, each charged with absenting himself from the Glenpark. They were Robert Brown, a seaman, aged 27, Patrick Shaughnessy, a fireman, aged 24, Allan Haseldine, a fireman, aged 19, John Houlsly, a seaman, aged 26, and Peter Mullan, a mess boy, aged 18. Mr J. C. Robertson, for the Union Steam Ship Company, agents for the ship, told the court that the Glenpark was due to sail for South Australia on Tuesday, but her departure was delayed by the determined efforts of the defendants to desert. They were absent from the ship at the scheduled time of departure, but they finally appeared half an hour after that time. Before the ropes were cast off, they threw their baggage on the wharf and scaled down the ropes. They were under the influence of liquor at the time, and as the master thought it best that they should cool down, they were placed in a cell for the night. For that reason the departure of the ship was delayed until that morning. Mr Robertson added that all the defendants were needed back on the ship and he asked that they should be placed on board by the police. When the defendants were asked by Mr Bundle if they had anything to say, Shaughnessy replied: “We were not under the influence of liquor. I had every intention of leaving, and I don’t want to go back.” Mr Bundle (to the defendants): Are you willing to go back?—No. . Haseldine, Mr Robertson explained, was a New Zealander who had signed on at Wellington. The others had joined the ship in Great Britain. Brown, Shaughnessy, Houlsly and Mullan were all sentenced to 24 hours imprisonment, and an order was niade for them to be placed on board the ship before she sailed. Haseldine was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within one week, if he did not go back to the ship.