TRESPASSING ON A RACECOURSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2671, 24 May 1905, Page 52

TRESPASSING ON A RACECOURSE.

RIGHT OF LESSEES TO PROSECUTE QUESTIONED. The further hearing of the charge of trespassing on Mosgiel Park Racecourse on the 2ith April preferred against John Graham, bookmaker, by the Taieri Amateur Turf Club was resumed at the Dunedin Police Court on the 16th, before Mr H. Y. Widdowson, S.M. The evidence as to the facts was taken at Outram on the 10th inst., and an adjournment was made to Dunedin for the production of the lease of the ground to the chib from John Ellis. The lease having been produced, Mr W. C. MacGregor, for defendant, addressed the court upon the law, and contended that there could not be a conviction, as section 6 of " The Police Offences Act, 1884," stated that only the owner of the ground could prosecute. The prosecution was by a person authorised by the Taieri Amateur Turf Club, who were the lessees and not the " owners" of the ground, and he contended that the law expressly stipulated that proceedings such as those before the court were to be taken by the owner or by someone appointed on his behalf. The Turf Club, he contended, were tenants, and as such had no authority to empower anyone to take proceedings for trespass. Justice Pearson had defined an "owner" as one who was entitled to the rack rent, and the club could not be said to be in that position. The lessees had their rights to enter upon a civil action for damages caused by trespass, but the owner, he contended, could only succeed in a prosecution of the kind before the court. He further urged that compliance with the act had not been followed in giving sufficient warning. Mr Finch, for the prosecution, said the only owner of the ground was the Taieri Amateur Turf Club, to whom the legal ownership had been transferred by the lease. He quoted "Wood v. Leadbeater in support of his contention, and said that Ellis, from whom the land ■was leased, would himself be a trespasser unless he was on the ground with thb petanißsion of the lessees. After argument His Worship reserved his decision until tho 30th inst., and intimated to counsel that if on that date any further legs! argument on the point raised could be adduced he would be prepared to hear it. It was intimated that the above decision also, allied, to the case A,. F. Quelch. v.

Robert Gartshore, a charge of trespass on the! course on the same d&.te.