SEVERAL MEN SENT TO PRISON

Southland Times, Issue 24593, 15 November 1941, Page 8

SEVERAL MEN SENT TO PRISON

FAILURE TO REPORT FOR SERVICE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, November 14. A claim that there were no Courts appointed to deal with such cases as his was advanced by Harvey Imandt, a cutter, who appeared before Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., charged with failing to report for military service. He said he was of German descent and he considered it no business of his to report. There was no Court where a man of enemy extraction could be heard and get his case considered, he said. The only Court was the Armed Forces Appeal Board, which considered only cases with relation to overseas service, but had no power to grant exemption otherwise. He believed he was entitled to consideration because it had been publicly stated in the newspapers that persons of enemy extraction were not wanted in the Army. The Magistrate: Probably if you had gone into the Army they would have turned you out. The trouble is that you disobeyed instructions.

The accused said that in such a case he would have been required to sign the oath of allegiance and other forms and that would mean taking action that was not sincere. The Magistrate imposed a month’s hard labour. The accused: Is not a man entitled to justice? The Magistrate: You are getting that. Alfred Norman Inwood, who was stated by the police to have appealed on the ground of hardship but to have had his appeal dismissed, said he volunteered for service six days after war broke out. He was single then. He had no word if his services were accepted and he had since married and had two dependents. The Magistrate: I am afraid there are very many people in the same position as you are. You can’t expect any differtial treatment. A sentence of a month’s hard labour was Imposed on this defendant, who is a carpenter, also on Noel Bernasconi, motor mechanic, Theodore Charles Nightingall, photographer, and William Baird Sword Stewart, life insurance agent.