From Our Files: ‘Peeping Tom’ in court...pirate videos...dogs ban an ‘injustice’

50 YEARS AGO

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CONSTRUCTION of the new Wainsford Road relief sewer, which is intended to ease the burden on the existing overloaded system, could start before the end of the financial year.

Overloading of the present system had led to a temporary ban on development in the New Milton area following continued pollution of the streams and consequent danger to health.

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CHRISTCHURCH Council, who asked for £250,000 for house improvements this year, have been told by the Department of the Environment that they are to be allocated £4,000.

“I phoned the D.O.E and asked if they had got the decimal point in the wrong place.” Borough Housing Officer Mr Michael Storey told the housing committee.

Mr Storey said he subsequently wrote, and they telephoned him to say they were reconsidering the allocation with regard to those properties which were lacking in basic amenities.

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A 39-YEAR-old man who was caught by a policeman after a complaint was made of a peeping tom in Brunswick Place, Lymington, was bound over to keep the peace for two years in the sum of £25 at the town's court.

The man admitted being found the night before in circumstances likely to breach the peace. Chief Inspector Peter Keehe prosecuting told the court that a police officer saw from an upstairs window a man crouching in the next door garden.

When interviewed he said that he was out walking when he was attracted by the colour television and started watching it.

25 YEARS AGO

WHEN trading standards officers investigating sales of pirate videos swooped on a market stall being run by a Purewell man they found he was selling hardcore pornography.

The trader at Salisbury market had 34 videos seized. Salisbury magistrates heard that some of them were unclassified because of their sexual or violent content.

Also found were copies of mainstream films including the latest Star Wars movie over eight months before its office video release.

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A LYMINGTON student will be running the London Marathon in a rhino suit weighing 30lb to raise money to try to protect the endangered species.

Marianne Basham was so moved by the plight of the rhino teetering on the brink of extinction that she has decided to run the 26 miles to boost funds for the leading non-profit rhino organisation – Save the Rhino International.

Though Marianne has been practising hard she has not yet run very far in the rhino suit, made from plastic, rubber and fibreglass and which was designed by the makers of the James Bond films.

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BRIAN Giles told members of Milford Parish Council it would be an “injustice” to ban dogs from the village beaches.

He argued at last week’s parish council that dog fouling on the beach was more or less non-existent and was mostly found on pathways along the top.

“We have to be very careful if we take this course,” said Tony Willcox, “dogs are very much part of the family and it would be appalling to ban them without good reason.”