SUPREME COURT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 100, 1 May 1939, Page 11

SUPREME COURT

OPENING OF SESSION

NINE CRIMINAL CASES

Eight cases, comprising two offences against property, three sexual offences, and three motoring charges, are on the calendar for the quarterly criminal session of the Supreme Court, which opened before Mr. Justice Smith toiday. In addition, there is a retrial of a woman ordered by the Court of I Appeal. The following were empanelled as the Grand Jury:— Bruce Balharry (foreman), Edgar James Back, Eric Arthur Ballinger, Arthur Falconer Baudinet, John Alexander Black, Frederick William Boshier, James Roland Brown, Edmund Herbert Clare, Horace Edward Clark, Russell Victor Clark, Reginald [Norman Ellis, Roland Henry Hall, i Charles Cyril Hawkins, John Moody jlliott, Frank Cedric Pears, John Frederick Phythian, William Moffatt Sarginson, Leonard Sinclair Thompson, Sidney Tairoa Tisdall, Kennetn Thomas Wilkinson.

His Honour, in his charge to the Grand Jury, said the total of ' eight cases that concerned it was not a very large number for the Wellington district. One of the cases was a charge of theft, it being alleged that a man was accosted outside a hotel in Newtown, lifted in the air, and some money taken out of his pocket. The other offence against property was the alleged conversion of a motor-car that was taken from a garage in Oriental Bay and subsequently found at Petone. The three sexual cases were charges of- rape and indecent assault, charges of attempting to procure a miscarriage, and charges of two offences against a boy. There were two charges of negligent driving causing death, and one of failing to stop after an accident.

The Grand Jury returned a true bill in each case.

The session started with the retrial of Marjorie Pickering, aged 42, on two charges of unlawfully using an instrument.