RECEIVING CHARGE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29240, 25 June 1960, Page 18

RECEIVING CHARGE

Woman Found

Guilty.

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 24. A jury in the Supreme Court at Wellington today found Clara Hallam, aged 75, proprietor of Lloyds Hotel, Wellington, guilty of receiving on March 30 furniture worth £214 10s belonging to Foss Shanahan, knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained. The jury added a strong recommendation for mercy. Hallam was remanded for sentence by Mr Justice Haslam. The jury retired at 11.30 a.m. and returned with its verdict an hour later.

Mr J. D. Murray prosecuted and Mr ‘R. Stacey represented Hallam.

Mr Stacey said the vital in*, gredient in this case was proof that "this quite aged woman,” Hallam, knew the furniture, for which she paid £l3O, had been dishonestly obtained. He submitted Hallam had acted honestly throughout the transaction. Mr Murray submitted that Hallam’s explanation that she did not know the furniture had been dishonestly obtained was unsatisfactory. In evidence she had agreed that many men living at her hotel were discharged prisoners and that she would know “that type of person” better than most.

Summing up his Honour said this was "a relatively simple case which has taken up an undue amount of your (the jury’s) time.” The crux of the Crown's case was to prove that at the time of receiving the furniture, Hallam knew it had been dishonestly obtained.