SUPREME COURT

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 250, 16 July 1920, Page 9

SUPREME COURT

. PRISONERS SENTENCED A YOUTH AND A REV6LVER Mr. Justice Chapman yesterday tontenced .. a number of prisoners' in ' tho Supreme Courts ,- Mr...J: Prendeville i appeared 'for tlio urown. Marfleld Kobort Gray, guilty of breaking, entering-, and'theft at Pahiatua; was favourably reported on.by the police. Ho nad'.stolen •a. revolver, apparently just I because tho idea of. possessing such a weapon fascinated him. The thoft ; :ialirht. liever have been dinoovored if Gray, who Was little more than a boy, had not acel\ dentally shot himßelf. "A. youthful indiscretion," wbb tho description that counsel for the drown nippiiod-to the prisoner's offenco. "X am goine to 1 givo you a ohanco of doing better in the future. 1 You .(will' be iplaoed upon probation-for a year," said His Honour.Froderiok James Patching had- pleaded guilty to a charge of theft at Wellineton, Tho prisoner was a Btnanger to New. Zealand; He had arrived in the. country .by the Port Nicholson in May last/.' fllr. ■'. Edwards- said that Patching had a wi,.., a child, and a mother to support. He had spent Bomo a oven weeks in gaol already.- The Court Imposed a'sentence of . four months' hard labofar.; , ' . Thomas Reynolds had committed at Fellding the orime of embezzlement. Pris oner was a returned soldier,, who. had'seen threo years' service at the front:.'■ On his return to New Zoaland he had been ap- ■ pointed to'the, secretaryship of : the Rc- / turned Soldiers' Olub at Feilding. He had 'conducted tho affairs of the club honestly for. a month or .so, and had then succumbed to temptation, and misused the funds. -• Taking into consideration the faot -that' pris- . oner had served - his country, and had been wounded, .His Honour I limited the Penalty to. all months'.imprisonment with hferd labour. John Daniels, alias John Sullivan, .was ffuilty, of' brealiinsr, entering, and theft at Hawera. Prisoner had several times previously been sent to gaol for breaches of the law. He described-himself as tho son of ah Irishman and a full-blooded lied Indian woman. The Court sentenced ntm to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour, adding a warning that if he again offended he would be adjudged an habitual criminal. • ' Walter Edward Cook,-who had systemati- ... cally stolen Government stores at Featherston' Camp, rocelve,d a sentence of bljc months' hard labour. When charged with the crime he had made a clean breast of it, and had given the police every a6slßt- , ance. i Mr. J. Scott said that prisoner had a wife and ; ono child.: Ho had no. previous convictions.- against him. ' ; - Roglna Huddleston,. for Tdiom Hr. .H. F, O'Leary appeared, haff pleaded guilty . to ft charge of making >a. false document Counsel for -prisoner submitted that tho woman's offence was one of the slightest of those which .came- under , the heading of "misleading. jußtico." The trouble had arisen out of her malting a false declar»- ' tion in order to obtain a barmaid's certificate. When-she committed ; the offence , her husband was-not in a positldn to keeb her and her two children without assistance. "I recognise that yoii did not commit the crimo from -any-, sordid motive, . though it is no justification to say that it was for the nurposft of supporting,your A thief might say that," observed His Honour. "However, 1 do not think that you -will repeat the offenco, or that, anybody else will. . . . Youwill bo ordered to pay a fine of £5, and will be alowed a month within . which to nay." Frederick Murphy, aged 17. and .Charles Stuart Hall, aged 26, had stolen four magnetos. ' It -appeared 1 that tho younger prisoner had been -the prime mover, in the affair, and had got the older man to come in and assist .him to dispose of the stolon goods. Murphy was sentenced to six months' 'reformative detention, and Hall to 12 months' hard labour.-'"-- ' Robert George- Noilly a youth of 18,- was placed on probation for three years on.a charge . of. breaking, • entering, and theft. The,case ]did\not- appear to bo a very serious'one of its kind, and'Jfr. J. Scott's plea for leniency met with tho assent ofHia Honour,'