MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 105, 29 January 1924, Page 3

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

POLICE AND MAINTENANCE CASES.

The usual Monday morning batch of offenders for drunkenness were disposed bv Mr. C. R. Orr-Walker, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Robert ‘William Wilson was fined £5 in default 21 da vs’ imprisonment,, in respect of his fifth lapse. James Walsh, a circus employee (represented bv Mr. W; E. Leicester), was fined £5 in default two weeks’ imprisonment, on a charge of stealing a watch and chain valued at £2 9s. Gd., the property of Alfred Hood. Tho evidence went to show that Walsh was staying at the same boarding house as complainant when the circus iras at Christchurch. Hood missed the watch and subsequently noticed it in the possession of the defendant. When approached by detectives, Walsh was alleged to have said that he had had tho watch for many years, but at the police station, stated that it had been sold to him bv a man named Shaw who had since left for the Old Country. The Magistrate commented on the fact that when stolen property was found in a man's possession, the onus was on hTm to prove that he had received the goods honestlv and this the defendant had n<st done to the satisfaction of tho Court. A man named 'William John Newman, alias Mewman, pleaded not guilty to a charge of being a rogue and a vagabond, although he admitted being found on premises in Taranaki Street in the small hours of Sunday. Acting Sub-Inspector Lander said the man had a maintenance order against him. and was not fond of work. He was sentenced to ono month’s imprisonment. MAINTENANCE CASES. James McCarthy, whose maintenance arrears amounted to £7 10s., was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, the warrant to be suspended so long as ho pays £2 10s. forthwith and £2 10s. per week. Rose Gray was granted a separation order again Robert Gray who was also ordered to maintain his child until it reaches the age of 16, and to pay 255. per week as maintenance for his wife.