HEADMASTER LIBELLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 675, 29 May 1929, Page 1

HEADMASTER LIBELLED

“AGITATOR TYPE’' ORDERED TO PAY DAMAGES LETTER TO EDUCATION BOARD Damages amounting to £3O for libel were awarded H. J. Reaks, headmaster of the Mokai School (Mr. E. Roe), against R. L. Birks, assayer, Waikino (Mr. J. D. Davys) in the Taupo Magistrate’s Court recently by Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M. The magistrate found that defendant had libelled the headmaster by writing to the Auckland Education Board with the statement that Reaks had put a girl, Amy Culpan, back from Standard 6 to Standard 5 for a period of six weeks, “as a punishment because she remonstrated with the headmaster when he brutally thrashed her brother and accused him of stealing another boy’s lunch.” The defendant had alleged the hoy had been so brutally thrashed that he could not attend school for a week. After traversing considerable evidence, Mr. Paterson held that the defendant had been actuated by malice, his charges were unfounded and that “I cannot but conclude that he is a man of the agitator type, acting ultroneously rather than as a man genuinely discharging a moral and legal duty.” Plaintiff had claimed £IOO, but the magistrate decided that although Reaks had been put to some inconvenience and annoyance by the libel, and the defendant had aggravated the matter by attempting to Justify his charges at the trial, plaintiff had not had his prospects with the Education Board seriously impaired. Costs were also allowed according to scale.