MEN NOT DISORDERLY

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1935, Page 9

MEN NOT DISORDERLY

DISMISSAL OF CHARGES SEDDON STATUE INCIDENTS. CONDUCT CLOSE TO “BORDERLINE” DEMAND FOR GREATER RELIEF. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Sept. 6. A banner displaying a demand for 10s more relief pay was "displayed in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, when Alexander Braid zßlance, aged 31, labourer, and William O’Reilly, aged 33, labourer, appeared on a charge of behaving in a disorderly manner following an incident in which they were forcibly removed by the police from the Seddon statue in Parliament grounds at the official opening of Parliament. After evidence had been heard Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., said he did not think their conduct came within the section of the Police Offences Act under which the charge was laid. Their conduct might have been objectionable to a great majority of people there, but to others it did not seein so objectionable. Disorderly conduct, in his opinion, was something more than they perpetrated on this occasion. Certainly it approached very close to the borderline, but he thought it was not grave enough to sustain a charge of disorderly conduct. Each was discharged. When Blance asked what about the return of the banner, Mr. Mosley replied. “It is in the custody of the police. It belongs to them. It does not belong to the court.”