This Act may be cited as the Police Offences Amendment Act, 1919, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Police Offences Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Every person commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction before a Magistrate to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, who incites, encourages, or procures disorder, violence, or lawlessness.

Every person commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two months, who unlawfully and without colour of right, but not so as to be guilty of theft thereof within the meaning of the Crimes Act, 1908, takes or converts to his use or to the use of any other person any horse, or any motor-car or other vehicle or carriage of any description, or any launch, yacht, boat, or other vessel.

Every person commits an offence and is liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds who issues, distributes, or publicly exhibits any document which is intended or likely, by reason of its wording or appearance or in any other manner, to cause any person or the public to believe, contrary to the fact, that such document is an official document, or that it is or contains a copy of or an extract from an official document, or that it sets forth the substance of an official document.

In this section “official document” means a document issued by or with the authority of His Majesty, or of the Governor-General, or of the Executive Council, or of any Minister or officer in the service of the Crown in his capacity as such, or of any local or public authority, or of any member or officer of any such authority in his capacity as such.

Section seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing paragraph (a), and substituting the following paragraph:—

Section twenty-eight of the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting, after paragraph (k), the following new paragraph:—

If any unauthorized person uses or wears any military decoration, or any medal, clasp, badge, ribbon, stripe, emblem, or decoration whatsoever so nearly resembling a military decoration as to be calculated to deceive; or if any person falsely represents himself to be a person who was or has been entitled to use or wear any military decoration; or if any person without lawful authority or excuse supplies or offers to supply any military decoration, or any medal, clasp, badge, ribbon, stripe, emblem, or decoration whatsoever so nearly resembling a military decoration as to be calculated to deceive, to any person not authorized to use or wear that military decoration, the person so acting in any such case shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.

In any prosecution for an offence against this section the burden of proving that any person was authorized to wear or use any military decoration shall lie upon the accused.