APPEAL BY WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 72, 27 March 1939, Page 6

APPEAL BY WOMAN

THREE-YEAR GAOL SENTENCE

Marjorie Pickering, aged 42, who was convicted by a jury in the Supreme Court last October on two charges of illegally using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage, and sentenced to three" years' hard labour by Mr. Justice 'Quilliam, appealed to the Court of Appeal today against that

sentence.

The Court consisted of the Chief Justice (Sir, Michael Myers), Mr. Justice £>stler, • and Mr. Justice jFair. M& -F. -W. Ongle'y appeared for the prisoner, and the .Solicitor-General (Mr. H. H. Cornish, K.C.) for the Crown. ~, x . In returning a verdict of guilty the jury made a strong recommendation to mercy on the grounds that those who procured the commission of the offences were equally guilty with the accused. Counsel-made an application to reserve a question of-law arising from the trial, but his Honour refused to suspend sentence pending the hearing of the application. •Mr. Ongley submitted today that the jury should have been directed to weigh the evidence on each charge separately. He contended. that the direction, in the result, not only failed to direct the jury to exclude irrelevant evidence, but actually, in fact, directed them to include irrelevant evidence, and to consider the evidence in one 'body. Further, it was submitted that the prisoner's defence was not adequately put to the jury in the summing up..' ■■. •. Decision was reserved.