ADMIRAL FINED

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 164, 20 July 1935, Page 8

ADMIRAL FINED

THREW AWAY SPEED SIGNS “HAD A GOOD TIME” LONDON, June 7. Engineer Rear-Admiral George Whittle Phillips, C.8.E., who was arrested on a warrant in London, was fined a total of £l2 at Alcester Police Court, Warwickshire, for wilfully damaging motor traffic signs. There were three charges. He w'as ordered to pay damages and costs amounting to 15 guineas. Rear-Admiral Phillips stood in the dock. He pleaded guilty. The warrant was issued at Alcester when a letter from him expressed his inability to attend. The valuation (£4 10s) of the damage to the three signs was too high, he wrote. The signs were quite illegal, he alleged, and he expressed the hope that “we should yet see Calvarys where these signs should appear.” A 13-year-old girl said she saw the admiral pull off a 30 m.p.h. sign ■and throw it into the River Avon, and a roadman said that he saw the admiral throw a sign over a hedge. Police evidence was that at Bristol the admiral said: “Between ourselves, I had a good time that day. I pulled down any amount of signs, ancit I put one in to the river.” The admiral .through his counsel, tendered an apology for his action and. for “wasting the time of the court.” The chairman said that Rear-Ad-miral Phillips had defied the Bench, but he had suffered through being under arrest two days and two nights.