SUPREME COURT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23349, 7 June 1941, Page 5

SUPREME COURT

PRISONER SENTENCED “Apparently you are, determined to become a burglar, in a professional way” said his \ Honour Mr Justice Northcroft, in the Supreme Court yesterday,- in sentencing, Alan Aubrey Kennington on charges of breaking a counting-house with intent to commit a crime therein, and. breaking a count-ing-house and committing theft therein. The prisoner was sentenced to three years’ detention in a Borstal institution. . “I see that since you were 14, you have been' before the Court on innumerable charges.” said his Honour. “I can only‘repeat what. I have had occasion '.to * say * before,- that when a boy of-14 comes before-the. Court, a whipping,rather than soft words would frequently be much more-helpful. You have gorife on apparently determined to become a burglar in a professional later appealed in the Magistrate’s Court, . and -on several summary charges ;he wasconvicted and discharged, and ordered to return stolen property to the owners. , DECREE NISI HUSBAND DEFENDS CASE A to; be made absolute in three - months, was made in favour of Olive Belleaner Keenan (Dr. A. L. Haslam) against‘William; Freney Keenan, who defended the action nimr self. ■ Petitioner was given interim custody of the child. The grounds were an agreement to, separate, made verbally in December, 1937, or alternatively, desertion. . Dr, Haslam said that the parties were married in 1934. but, in March, 1935, petitioner went back to her parents as her- husband failed to maintain her. She was taking steps in 1935 to enforce maintenance when her husband was sent to gaol, and she then learned for . the first time that he had a verylWhaW® ra & le criminal list.. They were, subsequently -reconciled, but Keenan flft his wife in December, 1937; and bdd! nets been with hersince.Almost the only money, sh.e ’had had from him' . .was. prison pay - received while he was serving various sentences. “He. has. a long and, wearisome list, said Dr. Haslam, I

Petitioner, in evidence, said there was one child of the marriage. From the beginning, her husband had failed to maintain her, had been addicted to drink, and had knocked her about. She did not know until April, 1935, that he had a criminal list, mostly for false pretence offences. Petitioner described attempts to obtain maintenance from her husband, but except for prison pay which she received while he was serving various gaol terms, she had obtained none. To her husband, petitioner said that when she had married him in the Roman Catholic Cathedral she had signed the usual undertaking to have any children of the marriage brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, but she had in fact, had the child christened as' an Anglican. Herbert Walter Walker, a carpenter, father of the petitioner, corroborated petitioner’s evidence. . ' The respondent, in evidence, said that no verbal agreement to separate was made on December 3, 1937. In fact, just before that he and his wife had agreed to start afresh. Her father was the . cause' of the trouble between them. ... His Honour said he was required to decide, on the. evidence, whether there was' an agreement, to separate, or alternatively, whether there had been desertion. He was satisfied that there was an agreement to separate, though perhaps it • was not made in formal terms. The marriage had been an extremely unsatisfactory one,,'as the husband had .spent most of his time in prison. • , _• „, William Samuel Bellamy (Mr D. W. Russell) was granted a decree nisi, to be made absolute after three months against Mabel Ann Bellamy. The case was adjourned from * earlier in _ the week for further evidence of the identification of the respondent. The evidence was produced yesterday and the decree granted. .