COMMON GAMING-HOUSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 22

COMMON GAMING-HOUSE.

CHARGE AGAINST OWNER. , CHRISTCHURCH, February 4. As a sequel to a gaming raid, Walter Hulston, a middle-aged man, a hairdresser and tobacconist, was charged before Mr H. P- Lawry, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day that, being the owner of premises at 171 Madras street, he knowingly and wilfully permitted it to be kept and used as a common gaming house by Alexander Duncan. Mr F. D. Sargent, for Hulston, said that this was the first case against an owner of a gaming-house that had ever come under • his notice. He submitted that under the statute • the onus lay on the Crown to prove that the defendant had knowingly and wilfully allowed the premises to be used as a gaming-house. The only evidence was that there were some torn up cards in the fireplace. The Magistrate: There is more than that. The place had previously been used as a gaming-house. Mr Sargent said that the presence of Hulston in the room fell far short of the requisite evidence. The Senior Detective considered that Hulston might have evicted the proprietor if he were suspicious of the conduct of Duncan. The Magistrate dismissed the charge in connection with the raid. Edward John Geary, tinsmith, was fined £2, and costs, on a charge of having been found in a common gaminghouse.