NO FOUNDATION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1935, Page 13

NO FOUNDATION

THE TJLACIGIAJL CASE

ACCUSED FOUND GUILTY

''By Telegraph—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, October 29,

The hearing of evidence was com eluded at the trial of John Albert Meggelt, who pleaded not guilty to four charges that at Dunedin, with menaces, he demanded money from Herbert Frederick Sincock with intent to steal it. Herbert Frederick Sincock, general] manager of Donaghy's Rope and Twine I Co., said he first met the accused on j July 9. He had also met the accused the following night. Those were the only occasions on which he had spoken to the accused. He knew the accused's wife, whom he had known when she was a single woman. He was then single and it was from 28 to 30 years ago that he met her. Witness had received many communications from the accused by telephone, closed letters, and postcards. Ho first communicated with witness by telephone when witness was at home one evening. The accused had said it was very nice of witness to give his wife a gramophone and pay for the education of his little girl at Columba College for three years and a half. Witness said that if the accused wished to speak to him he could call at witness's office.' He had not paid anything for the education of the accused's daughter or made any payment for the education of the accused's children. Witness related particulars of his meeting with the accused on one evening. He had met the accused and challenged him to give witness the thrashing he had promised. The accused said he would see his solicitors and walked away. He returned, and when challenged again by witness to give him a thrashing, again walked away. Detective-Sergeant Doyle gave evidence that he interviewed the accused on September 16, when the accused had said that he knew he had been foolish and should not have written the letters. He knew his wife was a good, moral woman,, and he had no evidence that she and Sincock had been guilty of any act of immorality. He made a written statement. He had said to witness Do what you can for me, and I promise I will never write or communicate with Sincock again." No evidence was called for the defence, and after Mr. Adams had addressed the jury, the Court adjourned until +ho morning. DUNEDIN, This Day. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts with a rider that it considered that the accused was labouring under severe mental stress during the period covered by his letters. The prisoner was remanded till tomorrow for sentence. His Honour Mr. Justice Kennedy intimated that he wished, to make the following observation: "The name of Mr. Sincock has been mentioned in these proceedings and in the correspondence. I am satisfied that he acted with propriety and discretion and that the derogatory statements in the correspondence are untrue. In fact, there was no foundation for them."