SUPREME COURT

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 174, 11 April 1923, Page 11

SUPREME COURT

PRISONERS SENTENCED ’ CASES OF THEFT AND FORGERY Prisoners who had pleaded guilty to offences, were sentenced by His Honour the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) yesterday morning in the Supreme Court. PETTY FORGERIES. William Richard Thomas, who admitted 11 charges of forgery, was represented by Mr. H. H. Cornish, who said that the falsification of railway documents had brought the prisoner only £5. The frauds were committed when he was in pecuniary difficulties/ If probation were possible, Thomas could return to work with his employers. fiis Honour admitted the prisoner to probation for two years, ordering, him to pay £5 ss. expenses by the end of 12 months. A CASE FOR PROBATION. William Bernard Irwin, for whom Mr. W. Perry appeared, pleaded guilty to forgery and uttering. Prisoner, said counsel, was in business in Hasting.,, and was doing well, but there was a fire, and he became ill. He was in debt for his lodgings, ,his personal belongings being seized by the landlord. He was offered £25 if he could obtain a satisfactory endorsement to a postal note. He had a friend who he thought would endorse the bill, but could not find him and forged his name. He had only one previous conviction. Restitution of the money was made by his friends. He had only one leg, which was considerably shattered, and had shrapnel in his side, as the result of war injuries. Counsel asked for probation. .His Honour: I think this is a case where probation should be granted. It la 17 years since he was convicted, and as he has a bad leg and is in poor .health I shall not order him to pay any costs. He is admitted to probation for two years. “A WASTER.” William Keating, who had pleaded guilty to theft from a dwelling houuo,' Yas represented by Mr. T. P. Cleary. The prisoner, said counsel, had only recently been convioted of similar crimes, committed on a drinking bout. The present thefts were also the result Of a drinking bout. The prisoner recognised that he had had his chance. All that could be urged in extenuation was that his mentality had been shaken by his war experiences. It was hard to understand how a man of his years tould perpetrate such a series of petty hotel thefts.

His Honour: He’s a waster, that’s why. Keating was sentenced to four years’ reformative detention, to commence after tho expiry of his present sentences. His Honour remarked that if a letter from the poor woman he had deluded had been alluded to as being in prisoner’s favour, he would have increased that sentence.