"DRUNKEN FREAK."

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20197, 23 December 1937, Page 3

"DRUNKEN FREAK."

MEN BEFORE COURT. Much Liquor Consumed. ARSON CHARGE REDUCED. MAGISTRATE'S COMMENTS. [By Telegrapn.—Pi-ess Association] AUCKLAND, Dec. 23. Charged that on December 15 at Huapai they committed arson by setting fire to a haystack valued at £3O, the property of Alexander Burr, and further, with the theft of a tarpaulin valued at £3, two young men appeared before Mr. F. K. Hunt in the Police Court to-day. They were: Henry Stamford Evans Turner, aged 23, a storeman employed by a city firm, and James Frederick Hennessey Harper, aged 24, a wireless operator, of the Air Force staff at Hobsonville. Mr. R. A. Singer who, with Mr. Kced, appeared for the accused, asked that the charge be reduced and accused be dealt with summarily. He said they had consumed a quantity of liquor. One man had lost his glasses in the haystack and while looking for them by striking matches tne hay had caught fire. They had voluntarily repaid the damage. Statements made by both men were read showing that they admitted taking th» tarpaulin, and after Turner Had lost his spectacles, Harper suggested setting fire to the stack in order to destroy the evidence. The magistrate said it appeared to have been a drunken freak and he did not think it necessary to put the country to the expense of a Supreme Court trial. He reduced the arson charge to mischief and adjourned the charges against Harper for three months, as, if convicted, he would lose his position in the Air Force, and left him to be dealth with by the Air Force authorities.

The theft charge against Turner was adjourned for three months, and he was fined £5 Tor mischief and ordered to be prohibited.