ALLEGED INTIMIDATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19435, 22 October 1925, Page 7

ALLEGED INTIMIDATION

INCIDENT AT NEW PLYMOUTH IMPORTANT TO UNIONISTS. CASE HEARD BY MAGISTRATE. [Per Press Association.] NEW PLYMOUTH, Oct. 21. A caso which created considerable interest camo before Mr. Boynton in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when Robert Fulton, secretary of the New Plymouth Waterside Workers’ Union was charged under the Police Offences Amendment Act 1913 ‘‘That on September 28, 1925, with a view to compeilmg Richard Henry Simpson to abstain from working at the moturou. Wharf in connection with the loading and unloading of ships, ho did wrongfully and wituout authority intimidate the said Richard Henry Simpson by addressing to him inter alia tho following words, ‘You aro a scab, scabbing on what the seamen aro doing a month for now. Tho best thing you ean do is to get out of tho town for a few years until it has blown over. If ever you do get on board again you stand a big chance of never getting off again.” Defendant pleaded not guilty. In opening the ease, the police said the facts were simple, but serious. An arrangement had been made to get the Port Dunedin away from the wharf and Simpson had gone on board under the instruction of the harbourmaster’s assistant, and worked a winch in lotting the line go. When he returned to tho wharf he was met by Fulton and called before U committee of the union, and it was at tho meeting that the words complained of had been used. The police added that the circumstances were not those in which the thing had been done on the spur of the moment, or in any heat, but calmly and deliberately, with the intention of intimidating the man from working at the wharf. After evidence for the Crown had been heard, tho magistrate said tha case was one of great importance to unionists, and he would take time to consider it and give a written decision.

Counsel for defendant cited authorities for submission that in order to establish intimidation there hud to bo proof of personal violence or threat of personal violence, which were entirely absent in the ease, and it should therefore be dismissed. The most that could be said in tho caso was that Simpson had been warned to keep out of the way of the seamen.