LETTER GIVES CLUE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 156, 4 July 1934, Page 7

LETTER GIVES CLUE

STORE OF OPIUM HOUSE RAIDED BY POLICE OCCUPIERS BEFORE COURT WIDOW AND SONS FINED [ Per Press AwocTntlon. J WELLINGTON, July 3. When the police raided certain premises in Auckland recently, they reund a letter, the contents of which caused them to suspect that opium was being imported into New Zealand in large quantities. The letter bore the address of a house in Kent Terrace, Wellington, and -t was in those premises that detectives and customs officers found 78 tins of opium on outurday morning. To-day, in tho ■lagistiate'b Court, Mary Greathoad, 05, widow, pleaded not guilty to a harge of permitting tho premises to do used for the storage or concealment of prepared opium. She was convicted by Mr. Stilwell, S.M., and lined £lOO. Her son, Leslie Seymour Greathcad, 28, baker and cook, was lined £lOO for being in possession of prepared opium, to which charge he pleaded guilty. Another son, Ernost Frederick Greathcad, 24, labourer, was fined £5 for being unlawfully in possession of an automatic pi.'tol and 29 rounds of ammunition, to which charge he pleaded guilty. The opium, which was worth possibly £660, and the pistol, were forfeited Detective F. Hayhurst fetid that ho and other detectives and customs officers searched the, flat occupied by .Mary Greathead. When witness reached the top of tho stairs he saw accused through a partly-closed door. She appeared to bo dressed in a nightgown. She went back into the room and closed the door. The detective opened the door asd taw a woman go ♦o Ihe window, and he hoard a noise a.s of something dropping. On the path directly below the window witness found a bag containing 78 tins of prepared opium. In evidence on her own behalf, accused said that wnui the police camo on Saturday slit) was in bed, but she got up and went along tho passage when she heard knocking. She heard one of tho search paity say that they were looking for opium in a bag, so she went into Ernest’s zoom and threw the bag which was there out of the window. “I did not know what was in the bag,” said accused. “I have no doubt that the action of accused in dealing *v.th the bag in the way’ she did, satisfactorily established the fact that she knew what was going on,” said Mr. Stilwell. Regarding Leslie Seymour Greathead, who pleaded guilty to being unlawfully in possession of prepared opium, counsel for the prosecution said that accused was a seaman who was paid off tho Maunganui on June 12. For some time he had been under suspicion of being connected with tho opium trade, and recently, when the police raided premises in Auckland, they found a letter. It bore the address of Greathead’s place in Kent Terrace and was signed with the maiden name of MYs. Greathead. The writer stated that he and a largo supply of “stuff” in Wellington—about £350 worth.