Police Raid During Holiday Week-end; Bookmaking Charge

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 October 1948, Page 2

Police Raid During Holiday Week-end; Bookmaking Charge

After pleading guilty before Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, Wanganui, yesterday, to a charge of carrying on the business of a book-maker, Jack Morris Noble, hairdresser, aged 43, was fined £3O, costs 15s.

Detective-Sergeant J. K. Robertson, who prosecuted, said that defendant was in business as a hairdresser in Victoria Avenue. The police called there at 11.45 a m. on Saturday with a search warrant issued under lhe Gaming Act. and found defendant in a room off the saloon. He had a number of recorded bets and a telephone, and admitted having taken bets. Records showed that defendant had taken 38 bets, ranging from 2s 6d to £6, and that he had also done some double betting to lhe value of £1.5 10s, Detective-Sergeant Robertson added. The total value of all the betting was £36 19s 6d.

Defendant told the police that the straight-out betting was for himself and that he was an agent for the double betting. Defendant had been in business as a genuine hairdresser and tobacconist for a number of years, said Mr. C. F. Treadwell. On the day the police visited his premises five or six reasonably large race meetings were being held in different parts of the Dominion, but in spite of this the total value of bets taken bv defendant was just under £36. It was obvious that he was not in a large way. He had no previous convictions.