LIBEL CLAIM

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22514, 24 November 1944, Page 4

LIBEL CLAIM

Y.M.C.A. CONCERNED SECRETARY’S EVIDENCE (By Teiegrapn.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Thursday The hearing of the claim by the Young Men’s Christian Association, Wellington, against Truth (N.Z.), Ltd., and the publisher, William Calder Crisp, for £SOOO damages for alleged libel, was continued today before the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, and a jury of 12.. Dr. O. C. Mazengarb appeared for the Y.M.C.A., and Mr H. F. O’Leary, K.C., with him Mr J. H. Dunn, for the defendant company, and Mr G. G. G. Watson for Crisp. Dudley Wills, general secretary of the Wellington Y.M.C.A., said that throughout last year and early this year tremendous difficulty had been experienced in obtaining and retaining housemaids and kitchen staff. Witness said he had seen the matron scrubbing lavatories in the residential quarters, cooking, washing dishes, scrubbing floors and doing many other jobs she was not employed to do. There were at present 83 civilian boarders in the main building. Gambling on the premises was forbidden, said witness, but on one or two occasions he had seen servicemen playing for money in the lounge and stopped them. Witness found that some boys gambled in a room upstairs. One boy admitted his guilt and said he was responsible for organising whatever gambling went on. He acknowledged that by breaking one of the rules of the residence he could not expect to remain a boarder and he left shortly afterward. There had not been any continuous complaint of petty thefts. It was an epidemic and he had tried to stop it. Meeting of Residents Witness said he was present at a meeting of residents the day Truth’s article appeared. Two resolutions were passed. At the conclusion of the meeting signatures of attendants were taken on blank sheets of paper and retained with copies of the resolutions passed. Later the sheets of signatures were destroyed. The redrafted resolutions were later signed by some 80 residents. Mr O’Leary: Did you know a youth had taken a detailed note of the happenings of the meeting and the resolutions passed? Witness: I learned so after the meeting. Mr O’Leary: Did he tell you he had seen a Truth reporter and had given a statement?—l asked if it were true he had handed his notes of the meeting to a Truth reporter and I think he said “ Yes.” The youth left the Y.M.C.A. about three weeks ago. He was a night worker. I went to his room just as he was going to bed and said: “ I am cleaning out the Y.M.C.A. I am beginning with the rats. You will go out today.” He had been an unsatisfactory boarder during the whole time I had known him. I had intended to ask him to leave some months previously, but instead gave him a warning. I considered that since the Truth article he had been a disturbing influence in the building. Mr O’Leary: I suggest there was another reason. Here was someone with an authentic note of the meeting and you were turning him out. Witness: It was not an authentic note. The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.