OPENING OF SESSION

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 10

OPENING OF SESSION

8 Indictments Presented

Sittings of the Supreme Court in Christchurch began for the year yesterday, with the commencement of a criminal session containing eight indictments, two of them on charges of murder. Only one of the charges of murder, however—against a 31-year-old factory worker, Gordon Cross (Mr D. H. Stringer) who is accused of stabbing a girl to death in a Chester Street flat —will be tried this session, beginning on February 12. On the second indictment on a charge of murder, against Bruce Lawrence Richards, aged 38, a Winchmore farmer (Mr R. A. Young), the defence is not ready to proceed this session, so that the trial will not take place until the end of April. Mr Justice Wilson, who presided at the formal opening of the court session yesterday, when indictments were presented, commented that it was unusual —and he hoped it would remain so—to find two indictments on charges of murder in the one list. In addition to these, the Crown Prosecutor (Mr N. W. Williamson) presented six other indictments against six persons, on charges as follows (in approximate order of trial): attempted burglary and being a rogue and vagabond: threatening to kill; assault and escaping from lawful custody; burglary; sodomy. Three weeks is expected to be devoted to the trial of criminal cases. The annual ceremony for the admission of new barristers and solicitors of the Supreme Court will take place on Friday, February 23, at 4 p.m.