SUPREME COURT TRIALS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10269, 11 February 1899, Page 8

SUPREME COURT TRIALS.

♦ I (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAMS.) X ' ■ WELLINGTON, February 10. I In the Supreme Court in the case of a young man named Robert Douglas, convicted of rape with violence on a young girl, at the Upper Opaki district. Dr. Teare, the Prison surgeon said that the youth was of low mental organisation, and he had not made up his mind that the prisoner had control over himself. The prisoner had been.little under parental control, and this would go in the direction the witness had indicated. The prisoner told witness that his father had threatened twelve months ago to have him examined as to his sanity. The Judge said that the position was unsatisfactory, but it would ,be absolutely unsafe to set at large a man of the samei class as the Amberley murderer was. He said it was a fearful thing to sentence a man to imprisonment for life, but he had power to do so, and if he discovered that the prisoner was of that class winch should not be at large, he would exercise it. He, however desired" to exhaust all the information resp.Ving prisoner's antecedents, and for that purpose, and with a view of having a further examination made, lie would suspend passing sentence for a week.. His Honour remarked that twelve months ago the prisoner was charged with a similar offence, and which was also attended with great violence, but the jury acquitted him. Yet, looking at the depositions and in the face of the present case, there was no doubt rJbat he was guilty. Patrick.-Murphy, for manslaughter at Palmerston North, was sentenced to two years' hard labour. Henry Sellars, for breaking and entering at Palmerston North, was sentenced to two years' hard labour. The Probation Officer's report in each instance was unfavourable. Chas- Neilsen, a young Scandinavian, was acquitted of the charge of assaulting a young woman, of twenty years, at Dalefield.