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It will be seen that four summonses were dismissed, in two
cases with costs against the Council. The first of these cases was
dismissed because the Council were unable to prove ownership.
The position was extremely involved as the defendant had held the
leasehold of the premises which he informed the Court he had
transferred to a limited company, who continued to employ him
in their business. The defendant had since become bankrupt and
had arranged for the rent to be collected by his brother, pending
some arrangement being made between the freeholder and leaseholder.
In these circumstances the Magistrate said that he could
not find that the defendant was the owner within the meaning of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1936 and accordingly dismissed the
summons with costs against the Council.
In the second case, the subject of the summons was a defective
roof to which some work had been carried out by the defendant.
The sanitary inspector was of the opinion that this work had not
effectively remedied the nuisance, but the Magistrate was not
satisfied that the nuisance existed and dismissed the summons with
costs against the Council.
The other two dismissed summonses were two of four which
were taken out for contravention of the drainage byelaws. Two
summonses for carrying out drainage work without depositing
plans and two for carrying out drainage work without giving
notice to the local authority were taken against one defendant
and concerned alteration to a combined drain serving two
premises. At the time of the hearing the defendant produced a
plan which satisfied the Magistrate that the part of the drain
within the curtilage of one of these premises had not been interfered
with. The Magistrate, therefore, dismissed the two summonses
relating to these premises, but made no order as to costs.