SUPREME COURT Man Found Guilty On Two Charges

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 23

SUPREME COURT Man Found Guilty On Two Charges

Maxwell Carlton Carney, aged 44, a welder, was found guilty by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday on a charge of using obscene language, over the telephone, and carrying an offensive weapon. He was acquitted on charges of using obscene language over the telephone Mr Justice Macarthur remanded Carney in custody for sentence on May 16. He had denied all charges. The all-male jury took one hour 45 minutes to reach its verdict.

The Crown Prosecutor (Mr N, W. Williamson) in his Anal address submitted that the jury would have no difficulty in accepting the detectives who gave evidence as honest and reliable witnesses. Carney, on the other hand, was shifty and untruthful.

Carney's evidence that he was being persecuted and pursued by the police was not substantiated by the evidence of both himself and detectives that he first telephoned the police to ask them to help him. The police were befriending him.

Mr A. H««m, for Carney, aubmitted that the whole affair waz a storm in a teacup. Carney was an inadequate man; he had a long criminal record, had not long ago been in prison for five years, and his only way of asserting himself was to use bad language. He had a chip on his shoulder and, rightly or wrongly, thought the police were not helping him on the particular occasion. He had telephoned to the Chief Detective to complain of that His Honour, summing up, said that if the jury believed the accused had used the language the detectives alleged he had, then he was guilty. The circumstances in which the language was said and the fact that accused was a type of man who might normally use such language were matters for mitigation of penalty. Sentence Reduced A magistrate had exceeded his jurisdiction in imposing a prison term on lan Alexander James, aged 26, a factory hand, in respect of a traffic offence, Mr Justice Wilson found in the Supreme Court yesterday. He reduced the sentence to three months from six months. Mr R. F. B. Powell appeared for James, who had appealed against sentence on two traffic charges arising from the one accident. Mr C. A. McVeigh appeared for the Crown. James had faced in the Magistrate’s Court charges of careless driving causing bodily injury and falling to stop after a collision involving a car driven by James and a cyclist, at the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street on January 21 last.

The Magistrate’s Court record (produced) showed that James had been gaoled for six months on the careless driving charge and one month on the other charge, the terms to be concurrent His Honour said, that in view of the remarks made by the magistrate in passing sentence, he was inclined to think that a mistake had been made and that the longer sentence applied to the failing to stop charge. His Honour noted that if charged on indictment the failing to stop count carried a maximum term of five years. However, as James had been charged summarily the maximum term was three months, as was the maximum term for the careless driving charge. His Honour then reduced the six-month term in respect of the careless driving charge to one month, and increased the one-month term in respect of the failing to stop to three months, the terms to be concurrent. Dismissed

His Honour dismissed an appeal by Cornelius Clarke, aged 25, a gunite operator, against a sentence of six months gaol imposed on him recently in tqe Magistrate’s .Court at Invercargill. Clarke had been sentenced to a term of six months in respect of a burglary charge, and a three-month term on a receiving charge, the terms to be concurrent.

Mr J. E. Butler appeared for Clarke.