SHEEP STEALING CASE

Evening Star, Issue 20556, 7 August 1930, Page 3

SHEEP STEALING CASE

VERDICT Of "NOT GUILTY" “Not guilty” was the verdict returned in the Supreme Court last evening by the jury which had been doing duty in the third trial of Gilbert William Lewis, who was charged with stealing twenty ewes, the property of JOdward James lies, at Springvalc, Central Otago. His Honour Mr Justice Kennedy presided. The case for the Crown was conducted by the Crown Prosecutor (Mr I l ’. B. Adams), and Mr A. C. Hanlon, K.C., with Mr G. M. Lloyd as juiiiior counsel, appeared for the accused. The Crown Prosecutor, who addressed the jury in the afternoon, spoke for an hour and a-quarter, and His Honour, in an address lasting an hour and ten minutes, reviewed the evidence. At 4.50 the jury retired. Twenty minutes later they returned to ask a question. They wanted to know whether the witness Marslin recognised to whom the shorn sheep belonged when he saw them. In reply, His Honour read the evidence of this witness. The foreman said that a juryman was anxious to know something about the horse that was said to have broken the fence of the paddock in which Mr lles’s sheep were grazing. The juryman would like to know the size of the paddock in which the horse had been kept at Alexandra. His Honour said there was nothing in the evidence on that point. The jury retired again at 5.25, and returned in twenty-live minutes with a vehdict of “Not guilty.”