SUPREME COURT

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25724, 9 February 1949, Page 2

SUPREME COURT

JUDGE’S ADDRESS TO GRAND JURY ONE NO BILL RETURNED “I am sorry to have to tell you that the | number of cases for your consideration is . considerably larger than customary. There are no fewer than 16 bills of indictment, which is a large list for Christchurch,” said Mr Justice Northcroft in his address to the grafid jury at the opening of the Supreme Court session in Christchurch yesterday. The first bill of indictment was a charge against Stanley George Samuel Terry of, in effect, harbouring an escaped lunatic. The accused was asked to take into his house a woman, ostensibly to look after the house. When she had been in his house a week, the accused discovered she was an escaped lunatic. Indeed, she was a dangerous one, for she had been com- | mitted to a mental institution after having | been found unfit to plead on a charge of murder. The facts would not afford the grand jury much difficulty, continued his Honour. . The next indictment was a charge against Hugh Cordiner Smith of indecently assaulting a female. A farmer in North Canterbury took his two small children to a stream to play while he did some work. It was alleged that, in the father's absence, the accused accosted the children and indecently handled the little girl. The accused denied doing so, and the case for the prosecution largely depended on the evidence of the children. The accused was also charged with common assault, and it was for them to say whethet he be put on his trial. The case against Lindsay Roy McAllister, of negligently driving a motor-car thereby causing death, was one which might ‘give the grand jury difficulty and one which they might well entertain doubt on the propriety of this man being prosecuted.

Next, there was a charge against Ivan Urlich, of the theft of a motor-car. It was a somewhat involved story. A car was taken from Christchurch by a man named Dick, who, accompanied by Urlich, took it to Timaru, where it was sold by Urlich. The two men then went and enjoyed themselves, it was said, on the proceeds of the sale. The car was stolen, for Dick had pleaded guilty to a charge of theft, and the police 'said that Urlich was a party to it. The prosecution said that Urlich must have known the car was stolen and there was an alternative charge of receiving. They would probably have no difficulty in finding there was a prima facie case.

The case against Ivan Major Martin tiling, of breaking, entering, and theft, turned almost entirely on the possession by Illing of bonds which had been taken from a house, coupled with the fact that Illing had been seen on the premises. ■ln the charge against Lawrence Arthur Breach of indecently assaulting a girl, aged 10, they had what the child said and what Breach said in an interview with the police. Series of Charges - There was a series pf charges against Baden James McEwan, a garage * proprietor, of Ashburton, and here again there was a complicated series of transactions. The police said that McEwan undertook to buy and sell cars, and there was the evidence of a number of people who took their cars to him to sell on commission. McEwan sold the cars and had not accounted to the sellers for the proceeds. In some cases they got a little of the money and, in other, cheques which were dishonoured.

Alan Edwin Brown and James Kyle Nimmo Simpson were charged with a series of crimes, mostly burglary or attempted burglary. Finally they had been found in the premises of a clothing manufacturer in Cashel street. Arising in some measure from their activities, a man, Arthur Edward Wright, was charged with receiving stolen goods. The police said that stolen property was found in two premises controlled by Wright. Raymond Maxwell Gilchrist was charged with indecent exposure, and the case turned almost entirely on the reliance which should be attached to the identification of the accused by the girl. It was a case they should examine with some care. The whole case against Reuben Charles Whitford, charged with failing to stop his car after an accident and ascertain whether anyone had been injured,' turned upon whether he knew someone had been injured, having regard to the nature of the injury to the cyclist. There was another indecent exposure case involving a man, Allen Edward Hunt. There had been something in the nature of a manhunt in church grounds, and the accused, who was caught, was alleged to be the man who had committed the offence. John Alexander O’Donnell was charged with the theft of a car. It was a strange story. O’Donnell being a blind man. He negotiated to buy a car privately. A receipt was made out and read to him. He got it into his possession and, the police said, he also got possession of the car. He maintained strenuously that he was in possession of the receipt legitimately. There were some strange circumstances in the ca&e.

True bills were returned against all the accused on all counts except in the bill of indictment against Lindsay Roy McAllister, in which a no bill was returned.