HAMILTON SUPREME COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1926, Page 10

HAMILTON SUPREME COURT.

PRISONERS SENTENCED. (Ry Telegraph.—Own Correspondont.l HAMILTON, this day. In the Supreme Court to-day, William Johnson, who was found guiity of forging and attempting to utter a cheque for £160 at Te Awamutu, was sentenced to 12 months' hard labour. Mr. Justice Herdman said that prisoner had been convicted on the clearest possible evidence. The Probation Officer's report described him as a waster who had previously been convicted of ?heep stealirig. Cornelius Buckley, found guilty of indecently assaulting two little girls at Waitoa, was sentenced to two years' reformative' treatment. The judge said that this class of offence was becoming very common. In imposing a light sentence, his Honor said he had taken into consideration prisoner's previous good character. James Gotliorp was found guilty of forging a cheque for £10 at Morrinsville. Tn sentencing him to two years'* hard labour, the judge said that the papers before him showed prisoner to be a young man of bad character, who had evidently made up his mind to follow a career of crime. He was convicted at Hamilton in 1922, and in 1923 at Auckland for forgery, when he was sentenced to. three years' imprisonment. Xo sooner was he out or gaol, however, than he commenced to forge again. HAMILTON, Wednesday. In the Supreme Court the jury, after a ten-minute absence, returned a verdict of not guilty in the case in which a resident of ifototuna was charged with incest. The hearing of a charge of forgery against James Gothorpe was adjourned owing to the non-appearance of an important witness. A CLERICAL ERROR. (By Telojrnph. —Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. This morning, the missing witness in the forgery charge against James Gothorpe. appeared in the Supreme Court and produced a recognisance form to =ho\v that a clerical error had been made in the (Into, wliicli rpsul June IS, instead of .Tunp S. ITis Honor remarked that witness' absence was excusable under tlip circumstances, and the order for the forfeiture of his £50 recognisance, which his Tlonor made yesterday, was thereupon fnncellerl.