PROSECUTION FAILS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1941, Page 4

PROSECUTION FAILS

HIRE OF ALLEGEDLY INDECECNT DOCUMENT. SUPREME COURT FINDING CITED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. A prosecution against Louise Hyams, of the Chancery Book Club, for having in her possession for hire an allegedly indecent, document, was dismissed by Mr E. C. Levvey in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The Magistrate held that he was bound by the finding of Mr Justice Blair, in the Wellington case which concerned Boccacios "Decameron. The book in this case was a novel, “Andrews Harvest.” Alter reading the Supreme Court decision, the Magistrate said it appeared that, instead of meeting the question of indecency alone, the Act required proof of indecency having been pushed forwatd. and 'on the face of it there could be no guilt in the present case. As for the actions of the accused there was no evidence of her having suggested to anyone that there was a pornographic book for hire and if Hie Court was satisfied, as it had been by the evidence in this case, as to the bona tides of accused, they must be taken largely into account and in fact they overrode the other question of indecency in the book.