Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

FREMANTLE BETTING PROSE
CUTION.
-4--
CHARGE DISMISSED.
The case in which John Hansen was
charged with keeping a common betting
house at 73 Market-street, Fremantle, was
resumed at the Fremantle Police Court yes
terday morning, after an adjournment from
the previous day. Mr. E. P. Dowley, R.M..
was on the Bench.
Mr. F. G. Unmack, for the defendant,
asked for a dismissal on the ground that
the evidence disclosed no offence. Defena
ant was charged with keeping a betting
house on October 21, and the evidence was
to the effect that at 10 o'clock on that
morning two plain-clothes constables' went
to 73 Market-street and endeavoured to
make a bet with Hansen. That bet was
not, however, -consummated at the shop,
and could not be consummated unless and
until the horse actually started in the race,
which was not till 3 or 4 o'clock that after
noon. He further maintained that no suf
ficient evidence had been given to show that
this was a common betting-house. One act
of betting did not constitute a common
betting-house. The documents found in the
shop had not been proved to be Hansen's
property, and the evidence of the two plain
clothes policemen was contradictory.
The defendant, John Hansen, on being
put in the box, stated that lie used the
premises at 73 Market-street as an office.
When the two plain-clothes men asked to
make a bet he told them there was no
betting inside, and the bet was accordingly
made on the footpath. The W.A.T.C. ob
jected to the use of a shop for betting,
and that was why he made bets on the
footpath only. When the constables came
back the second time he was in the office,
and he said, "Get out of this! There is
no betting in the shop." The documents
said to -elate to betting were all old stuff
and were found by Detective Lynch in the
rubbish heap.
Cross-examined: The policemen were ab
solutely wrong in asserting that he was in
side the shop when he made a bet with one
of them. Shown some papers, witness denied
that they referred to racing.
Detective Lynch: Oh, no: they refer to
some Sunday school picnic, I suppose?
In giving judgment the R.M. said that
in this case the evidence for the complain
ant was that one bet was made in the shop.
That depended largely on the evidence of
the two ydung policemen, and they 1- had
contradicted themselves in various material
particulars. Weighing the evidence for and
against, he was of opinion that it was not
strong enough to support a conviction, and
he therefore 'dismissed the complaint.
$