Alleged threats with a knife in a village High Street were described by four M.O.F. officials at Sharnbrook Court on Friday, when Reginald Mole, a butcher, of 136, Wellingborough Road, Rushden, was found guilty of assaulting two of them.

Defendant pleaded not guilty to assaulting Mr. Lawrence Cross, a M.O.F. Inspector from Cambridge, or of obstructing him in the performance of his duties, and not guilty of assaulting Mr. Jack Alsopp Powell, of Cambridge, a district meat agent.

Mr. Cross described how, in company with Mr. Frederick Green, an enforcement officer of the M.O.F. from Cambridge, Mr. Powell, and Mr. A. W. H. Howell, an inspector of weights and measures employed by the Bedfordshire County Council, he kept observation on a van owned by Mr. Mole, at Riseley on June 24th. They were checking on the prices being charged by the defendant.

They had a conversation with the defendant's son, who was delivering the meat, and he then went into a house. Mr. Cross then went on to describe how the defendant later arrived on the scene in his car and said that but for the fact that he and Inspector Green jumped clear, they would have been run down. A leather bag, containing weights, was thrown into his face, and Mr. Powell was threatened with a bayonet-like knife.

Mr. Powell described how the knife was levelled at his stomach from a distance of about a foot. He afterwards went for the police and they returned with him to the scene.

Mr. Howell and Mr. Green also gave corroborative evidence.

On oath Mr. Reginald Mole said that he had been in business as a butcher since 1926. His son, Donald, assisted him in the business, and on June 26th left to deliver at Rushden, Yelden and Riseley.

Perturbed

In consequence of a telephone call he received he drove over to Riseley, where he found four men standing around his van. He agreed he was not in the best of tempers when he got out of the car because he was perturbed over his son, who was of a nervous disposition.

He said he asked the men what offence he had committed and they could not explain. In his disgust, he said he lifted up the bag to cast it out of the van; it may have hit someone but he was in too bad a fit to see.

He said he pulled the knife out of the sheath and then put it back again. When he said the knife wanted using on them he had not intended it seriously.

Cross-examined by Mr. B. M. Stephenson (prosecuting for the Ministry), Mole said that all four officials were telling lies when they said he took his coat off. He only threw the bag out of the van and did not aim it at anyone. He disagreed that his son took the knife from him and said he threw it back into the van himself, although admitting that his son afterwards took it and hid it in a nearby house.

Methods Resented

Asked by Mr. Stephenson, why, if he did not resent having his meat checked, he accused them of being "Gestapo," defendant retorted; "And so they are; every butcher calls them that." He added that their methods were resented.

Mr. Donald Cedric Mole, defendant's son, also gave evidence, and in his summing-up for the defence, Mr. J. A. Grieves, of Leicester, said that the prosecution had opened by asking for protection from the court for its public officials, but he suggested that it might also be that the public had a right to be protected from officials.

Four of these officials had come into court without a scratch between them, although the incident which they related had occurred between four men against one on a highway in broad daylight.

"I am not here to justify what he did, he went on. €œI must admit that if there was an excess of powers on one side there was certainly not a great deal of wisdom shown on the other.

"There are many honest and sincere people in this country who believe the powers given to public officials are too wide. In candour, the Bench must agree that the public servant, too, is still entitled to hold a private opinion and to express his views.

Mole was found guilty of both charges of assault, and in the case of Cross was fined £5 and bound over for 12 months. In the case of Powell he was fined £3. The charge of obstruction was dismissed.

Mole then pleased guilty to three charges of selling meat in excess of the maximum control price and in each case was fined £1 with £3 7s. costs.