POLICE COURT PROCEEDINGS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 2

POLICE COURT PROCEEDINGS

DEFAULTER IN MAINTENANCE. MAN WHO MARRIED AGAIN. Imprisonment for one month with hard labour was ordered in the New I’lymouth Police Court yesterday for John Francis Johns, who was arrested at Waitara for being more thau 14 days in arrear with a maintenance order of £2 a Week for his children. The order was made in Christchurch in 1921 and was afterwards varied to Js 6d a week for each of four children. The arrears up to July, 1922, totalled £56 Ils 7d. Senior-Sergeant McCrorie said the man had been employed as a waiter in an hotel at Waitara, He had married again on April 7. He had no money. °ln reply to the magistrate Johns said he had nothing to say. The magistrate, in imposing sentence, said he did not like to send people to prison for these offences without giving them a chance of explanation. Johns, however, seemed unwilling to say anything. TRAFFIC REGULATION BREACH. WIND TEMPERED TO SHORN LAMB An explanation that his truck had been seized since and that he w r as now off the road owing to the depression •was made when Ernest Leopold Hocking appeared to receive an adjourned penalty for & breach of the heavy traffic regulations for which a conviction was entered some time ago. He was fined £2 and £2 14s fid costs. It was urged that the Highways Board had been put to a good deal of trouble and some expense over the matter, and that if the penalty had been fixed at the time the fine, or some of it, would have been paid. A solicitor’s fee was therefore asked for, together with payment of certain other expenses. In fixing the penalty the magistrate remarked that lie had “tempered the wind to this shorn lamb as much as possible.” PROHIBITION ORDER BROKEN. Convicted three montlis ago for a breach of his prohibition order, the penalty being adjourned, Percival Cecil Fraser was fined £2.