NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 531, 7 December 1928, Page 13

NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE

CASE AGAiNST LICENSEE DISMISSED S.M. HAS HIS DOUBTS “Because 1 dismiss this case, it does not mean that I believe the yarn told by defendant. An Honest man would have made an immediate and frank explanation.” Thus Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M.. dismissed the ease against Alfred Peters, who was charged, at the Police Court tliis morning with keeping open to sell liquor after hours, and John O’Carroll, who was charged with being found on licensed premises after hours, without lawful excuse. Mr. Robert McYeugh appeared for both defendants, pleading not guilty. Constable Broadley saw a light in the bar oi the Windsor Castle Hotel at ten o’clock off the night of October 22. He also heard the cash register ring. A few minutes later Mr. Peters, the licensee, had opened the front door, and after glancing up and down the road, let O’Carroll out from behind him. Witness followed, and accosted O’Carroll, who was carrying a parcel. He asked him what was in the parcel, and O’Carroll had said three bottles of beer. “Don’t make a fuss about this or 1 will lose my job," he pleaded. “I took him to tho Parnell police station." continued Constable Broadley. “and he explained that he had been to visit a friend at the hotel. He refused to say where he had got the beer.” O’Carroll said that he had attended a charity bazaar that night. His house, being close to where the function was being held, he had thought it possible that a few of his friends might go over for a little refreshment, so had brought three bottles of beer from an hotel in Newmarket, where he was employed as barman. Leaving the bazaar, he still had the beer with him, and decided on his way home to visit a friend at the Windsor Castle. On arrival at the hotel, he was told by Hugh Smith, the barman, that his friend was no longer staying in the house. After a short conversation with Smith ho left, being afterwards accosted by the constable. The head barman of the hotel in Newmarket, where O’Carroll had been employed, corroborated that part of his evidence relating to the bottles of beer said to have been taken that night.