BENEFIT OF DOUBT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 671, 24 May 1929, Page 11

BENEFIT OF DOUBT

NO CONVICTION AGAINST SPORTSMEN rabbits or pheasants? “There is a doubt and defend*nts might as well have the benefit of it,” commented Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., when H. Hodgson and C. McGuire were charged at the Police Court this-morning with taking and killing game without a licence. -trR. A. WEST appeared for the Ac--IM. cllmatisation Society and Mr. Inder for defendants, entering a plea of not guilty. Mr. W. T. Routledge, association inspector, said that May 15 at Riverhead he had kept defendants and another man under observation for half an hour before accosting them. All had guns, and there was a setter dog with them. They were systematically working the country in a manner that suggested they were after game. Witness said that the third man, Salisbury, had a licence, bat defendants had not. “I confiscated the guns, which were clean,” said the inspector. “Salisbury claimed the dog as his.” Mr. Inder explained that his clients had been after rabbits. Mr. Salisbury had been looking for phc\ ants, but the others had merely given him a lift out to Riverhead. The two men were old sportsmen and always took out a licence each year, but on this year their annual leave was late, and they had delayed taking out a licence until they could go shooting in the Hobson County later on. Both McGuire and Hodgson had been in the habit of visiting Riverhead once a week to shoot rabbits. Counsel called witnesses to prove that such was the case. Mr. Inder asked for costs against the society, but the magistrate was not prepared to grant the request. 'Had the charge been brought recklessly I should consider it,” he said, "but both defendants should know that it is not safe to go out in pheasant country with a setter dog unless they have licences.”