WEBSTER SENTENCED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 95, 19 October 1944, Page 8

WEBSTER SENTENCED

TERM OF THREE YEARS

A sentence of three years' imprisonment with hard labour was imposed on Walter Roy Webster by Mr. Justice Blair in the Supreme Court today on a charge of unlawfully compelling Terence Francis Reilly to sign a valuable security. The sentence is to be concurrent with a sentence of .one year the prisoner is now serving for assault.

From the dock Webster said that the reason why he had asked last week to have sentence deferred was that there were several matters he wished to place before the Court.

His Honour said that the prisoner had the right to apply for that, but it was undesirable that the sentence should be hanging over him. That was why his Honour took an early opportunity of having the matter brought up. One reason given by the prisoner was that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, and the prisoner had the right to bring that forward. "I have to assume, however, that the verdict of the jury is justifiable," said his Honour, "and that being so I am going to impose an appropriate sentence. The charge upon which you have been convicted is a very grave one, and the law provides, at the Courts discretion, for life imprisonment with hard labour. It seems to me that I should impose a substantial sentence, because the act was deliberate and pressure was applied by you over a number of hours in order to have executed a document that the Court of Appeal has held to be a valuable security."