SUPREME COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 35, 10 February 1920, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SESSIONS. SPITTLE NOT GUILTY. The retrial of Charles Spittle (Mr. Allan Moody) , charged with assault and robbery, was concluded yesterday afternoon, before Mr. Justice Chapman. The jury retired shortly after 3 o'clock, and .'returned in half an hour with a verdict of not guilty. WHAT BECAME OF THE WHISKY? EX-STOREMAN ARRAIGNED. William Joseph Courtney (Mr. Allan Moody) pleaded not guilty to a charge of having broken and entered the warehouse of Bruce Cunningham, in Albert Street, in December last, and having stolen ten cases of whisky.. g> Under cross-examination, the arresting constable said he was aware that Courtney was a man considerably addicted to drink, and at the time of his arrest he appeared muddled, but not drunk. Plain-clotlies Constable Knight stated that Courtney, who was on bail, failed to surrender himself, and was arrested in a brothel in Albert Street. In answer to Mr. Moody be said that Courtney was in receipt of payments under his father's will. He knew, also, he had been to the front, but did not know if liis gratuity amounted to £SO.

Counsel for the defence contended there was practically no case to answer. The accused had between five and ten minutes to get away with ten cases of whisky, when it was admitted, moreover, that he was muddled with drink. Counsel agreed that his client bad been guilty of mischief in breaking the windows, but lie submitted that no more serious offence could be established.

The prisoner, in the course of evidence, stated that ho returned from active service about two and a half years ago. He received his military gratuity, and had since fallen heir to £ 180 a'year under his father's will. This, with £2 10/ a week he got us storeman at Cunningham's, brought his income to £6 a week. He began a heavy drinking bout on December 3. and when he left the store at 1.30 in the afternoon he was drinking about the town tiil six o'clock. He remembered receiving the ten roses of whisky at the store and signed for them, but had seen nothing of them since, nor had anything to do with ttiem. When he returned to the store in the evening it must have been either for his overcoat or for two bottles of beer he had left there, and which he was consuming in the street when arrested.

Cross-examined by Mr. Tole, the prisoner admitted that he hod a pretty bad record, starting with a sentence of three mouths for theft in 1007. For twelve years, except while he was on active service, he had been in and out of gaol a good many times, his misdemeanours including false pretences, theft, drunkenness, breach of prohibition orders, consorting with undesirables and vagabondage. On the previous dav he had been sentenced to three months in tJie Lower Court for consorting with prostitutes. The case is proceeding.