SUPREME COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 283, 26 November 1908, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

(Before Mr. Justice Edwards.)

YESTERDAY. REMANDED FOR SENTENCE. The hearing of the cases against Henry Thompson, charged with having on ten different occasions last September indecently exposed himself in Carlton Goreroad, occupied all yesterday afternoon. ilr. J. R. Lundon defended.

Evidence was called on behalf of the defence, and Thompson himself, in the box, denied that he had done anything in the manner suggested. He suffered with muscular rheumatism, and merely walked from the bathroom to the balcony to rub himself down with the towel. He had, perhaps, acted indiscreetly, but had done nothing more. As for the accusation about waiting till young girl.s passed, he denied that such could have been possible. Eor eighteen years he had suffered from compound stigmatism, and without his glasses he could not distinguish anyone at all in the road.

After a few minutes' retirement, the jury found the prisoner guilty, and the Judge remanded him for sentence till Wednesday next. ANOTHER GRAVK OFFENCE. The whole of this morning was occupied with the hearing ol ihe charge against the young man Reginald William Service, accused o£ having, on Sunday, the 11th of last month, at Mt. Eden, assaulted a little girl with intent to commit a criminal offence, and with an alternative count of having committed an indecent assault. Mr. J. R. Lundon defended.

The case for the prosecution, as outlined by the Crown Solicitor, Hon. J. A. Tole, X..C, was to the effect that on the Sunday afternoon in question some little girls were playing on the old rifle range at Mt. Eden when the prisoner approached and asked one of them to show him the way to a certain house. As the little girl was complying with his request, it was alleged, he induced her to accompany him a little way off the road, and was in the act of committing the offence alleged, when two men, noticing him lead the child behind a bush, and suspicious of his motive, followed and discovered him.

A number of witnesses, including the child's companions, were called, and counsel for either side addressed the jury, no evidence being called for the defence.

In summing up, his Honor remarked that never in his long course of jurisprudence had he met with a case so clearly proved as this. The question for the jury to decide, however, was whether the prisoner had committed the major or the minor offence.

The jury returned a general .verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was remanded till next Wednesday morning for sentence. (Proceeding.)