"DEFAMING HIS WIFE."

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12364, 1 December 1905, Page 10

"DEFAMING HIS WIFE."

?~ —•— SEVERE COMMENTS BY MR JUSTICE EDWARDS. (press association- TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, November 30. An unusual incident broke the monotony of the Supreme Court this morning. A prisoner named Joseph Gardiner had been found guilty of having committed psrjury in tho Hamilton Magistrate's Court by denying, on oath, that ho had accused his wife of infidelity with a policeman at Taumarunui. In giving their verdict the jury had recommended tho prisoner to clemency on the ground that the accused's mind was disturbed by his extraordinary domestic surroundings. Before announcing the sentence, his Honour Mr Justice Edwards made some strong comments upon Mr Lundon's conduct of the case, specially with reference to tho evidence given by tho prisoner's two children, and particularly the boy. which was .foreign to the matter under trial and only intended to degrade their mother, tho prisoner's wife. Mr Lundon protested against th© suggestion that ho knew that anything these people had said was false. Tho brief was handed to him containing the boy's statement before ever ho saw or heard the boy. His Honour then proceeded to address tho prisoner and denounced, in strong terms, his action in going into the witness box to again commit perjury and in "tutoring littlo children to defame their mother. You aro not," said his Honour, "wholly responsible for your defence; that responsibility rests on other shoulders in part, but you aro responsible for your own perjury committed in this box yesterday, and you are responsible for bringing those littlo children into Court, the boy obviously telling a tissue of falsehoods of tho mostabsurd character, with no object except to defamo their mother, who is still your wife." If, continued his Honour, tho prisoner had any complaint to make about his wife ho could have proceeded against her on the civil side and petitioned for a divorce. Prisoner's conduct deserved very severo punishment. Tho law limited the sentence to seven years, but, in consideration of the jury's recommendation, he would pass the comparatively light sentence of ono year's imprisonment.