FAILURE TO REPORT FOR DUTY

Southland Times, Issue 24681, 28 February 1942, Page 5

FAILURE TO REPORT FOR DUTY

. RESERVIST FINED £lO (P.A.) . HAMILTON, February 27. Failure to report for military duties and obey the lawful commands of an officer on January 27 was the charge under the National Service Emergency Regulations 1940 preferred in the Magistrate’s Court at Hamilton today against Leonard Victor Brightman, of Hamilton, W’alter Henry McNeill, of Pukemiro Junction, and Mervyn Clement Ward, of Hamilton. Brightman _ pleaded not guilty. Sergeant-Major R. A. Thomas introduced Army records to show that Brightman had failed to report on five occasions since being called in the second ballot on November 6, 1940. Brightman produced a notice cancelling his calling up and claimed that he had had 12 years’ Army service, including six years in North-West India. He came to New Zealand to recuperate in health and was willing to assist the war effort in any way. He was a carpenter by trade and for a year had been doing emergency war work at a military camp and in cheese factories. Brightman said he was not a conscientious objector on religious grounds, nor was .he a pacifist. He considered he could give better service in the war effort as a skilled tradesman than as a soldier or in a defaulters’ camp. The Magistrate, Mr 'W. H. Freeman, imposed a fine of £lO, adding that it was difficult to decide on the best course to take with Brightman, who was very different from the general type of reservist charged with failure to r report.