CRIMINAL SITTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 17192, 6 November 1919, Page 2

CRIMINAL SITTINGS

DUNEDIN. The Court sat until late yesterday afternoon. A £5 NOTE. Margaret Rankin Marks (Mr Irwin) was charged with stealing a £5 note from a leturned soldier. Mr Irwin, addressing the jury, srid that it wa-s either a caso of theft from the person or nothing at all. Apart from the evidence of Mrs Muir and her nephew (Shortland) there was nothing else against the accused. Learned counsel submitted that, if accused had taken the monov, one would have expected her to have oleifred out instead of returning to town with the others in the taxi. The whole of her conduct was consistent with innt/cenco. He asked the jury to discredit the evidence of Mrs Muir and her nephew. The jury, after retiring for 25 minutes, returned a verdiot of not guilty. • THEFT. Allan Leslie Steven (Mr Hay) and Williara James Brough (Mr Hanion.) were charged with having on various dates stolen 166 sacks of wheat and bran, tho property of A. Steven and Co. Steven pleaded guilty to each charge, and Brough nor guilty. Brough was further charged with receiving the sacks of wheat and bran, knowing them to have been stolen. He pleaded guilty to this .Jbarge. Mr Hay said that Steven was ♦married, and was the ton of the late Allan Steven, who died in 1914 worth about £30.C00. He left about £12.000 for the benefit, of accused, two sisters, and a brother. This I sum was to be divided equally amongst the four of them. The business was floated into a company with a capital of £-26,000. The assets of the company comprised this business and also a farm of 8.000 a-ci'63, which belonged to Mr Love. After the company had been formed there was no profit the first year, the next year there wa-3 a very small profit, and last year the profit came to about £2,000. The accused had been employed hy his father in the business, and continued to be employed until 1917, when he went to the

war, and had two years' service at the i front. Rightly or wrongly, accused was | apparently not satisfied with the management of the business. He was reinstated at tlie mill after he came back from the war, and was em-cloyed at £2 10s or £2 15s per week. He felt that lie was not being fairly treated, and at the beginning cf this yoar he tried to bring matters to a bead. The only excuse accused gave was that he vras trying to vfk a little bit of his own brick. Fis uncle had stated in the depositions that the vouug man bad been somewhat irresponsible and hardly normal. Prior to going to the war he had been thrown from a motor cycle, and bad sustained- concussion of the brain, and had not been the same as before. He had had two years at the war, and did good service. At the present time he was in receipt of a small pension. He had been gassed, and had trench fevor, and had ibeen in the big railway accident at Bere Ferrers, when 10 of the 13 New Zealanders who were on the line were killed and two maimed for lifo, the accused j being the only one to escape. Accused had 4.500 shares in the company, and I restitution would be made for all the , shortages of wheat. Mr Hanlon said that Brough was born ■ here 33 years ago. He was married, living apart from his wife. Accused said ! that he entered into this thing in the , first place in quite an innocent way. He knew that Steven was one of the shareholders, and thought there was no harm in buying this stuff. Afterwards he was oo frequently asked by Steven to purchase that be became suspicious, but he did not have the moral courage to refuse to go on with it. If accused had been making a substantial thing out of it they could have understood it, but he was paying about the same price as what he sold the wheat for. So without any appreciable gain he was | helping another man to commit theft, j Counsel asked for His Honor's leniency on account of the man's unfortunate state of health. He did not think that accused

was a particularly strong-minded man, and physically he was anything but strong. Hih Honor romanded the accused for sentence. Ho asked the probation officer to report, and also Dr Evans to report on tho physical condition of Br'ough and the mental condition of Steven. The accused will probably be ibrought up on Monday next. REFORMATIVE TREATMENT. • Edward Albert M'Combe, aged 17 years, who was found guilty of intent to intiroidato, was brought up for sentence. The Crown Prosecutor said that accused had gone to the bush with a gun and started as a bushranger or something of the sort. Ho had grown tired of that, and had abused the hospitality extended to him.

His Honor said lie did not £oel like taking tlio responsibility of sotting the prisoner at large. Ho certainly thought tho accused should be put under the control of tho Prisons Board for a considerable time, so that when he got his liberty it would be unlikely that ho would repeat his present offence. He would order the prisoner to bo detained for reformative purposes for a term of not less than five years, CHRISTCHURCH. In tho Supreme Court yesterday John Lynch, a stonemason, was charged with having forged a tota lisa tor ticket at the Metropolitan Trotting Meeting on August 15, entitling the holder of the ticket to a double-figUre dividend on Dillon Direct, tho winner 'c~f tho Federal Handicap, also with having attempted to induce a tota-U----sator clerk to act on it as if it were genuine, and. in the alternative, with having used tne ticket knowing it to be a inlso document. The evidence for the Crown showed that tho ticket was a clever forgery. It was • suspected 'by a pay-out clerk, who closed the window in order to examine it. The accused went away, but later he returned to the totalisator-house and demanded payment. The accused, giving evidence on his own behalf, said be chummed up, with a soldier on the course, and they betted together all the afternoon. The ticket was given to him by hia friend for the collection of the dividend, and he had no idea that it was not genuine. Hia Honor, in summing up, said it must be j remembered that there were some very | smart people to be found on a racecourse, I and tbs accused might have been made a j cat's-paw. The jury, after a brief retire- ! ment, returned a verdict of not guilty.