ALLEGATIONS OF LIBEL

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1931, Page 7

ALLEGATIONS OF LIBEL

PAMPHLET DECRTES POLICE

LEAVE TO PROSECUTE GRANTED. COUNSEL CRITICISES PROCEDURE. WELLINGTON DISTURBANCE ECHO. . By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, December 22. An application by the Crown Prosecutor for leave to prosecute George Budd and Ernest Frederick Thompson for alleged defamatory libel was granted today by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. The matter arose out of a demonstration of unemployed in Parliament grounds, Wellington, on September 16. In the subsequent Court proceedings Inspector Lander stated he was without batons or handcuffs. Later, at a meeting in a theatre in Auckland, leaflets were distributed by Thompson bearing Budd’s imprint. The pamphlets were headed, “War,” and asserted that Lander had perjured himself and referred to him as “Perjurer. Bar and attacker of defenceless men, women and children.”

Counsel opposed the application and said both men were now serving sentences of three months. If the application was granted they would, after their release, have to appear at the Supreme Court in February. He also criticised the procedure of applying under the Crimes Act, under which the penalty was one or two years’ gaol instead of under the libel law with a penalty of £lOO or three months. The pamphlet, he added, had a limited circulation. The magistrate said that in his opinion it was a proper application.