SUPREME COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1929, Page 2

SUPREME COURT

petrol station theft. (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 10. Gilbert Bannister Simpson, and John Hubert Anderson, appeared at the Supreme c6urt to-day on two charges of breaking and entering, and one of theft. Simpson pleaded guilty to tho theft of goods of a value of 6/6. Anderson pleaded “not guilty. Simpson was admitted to probation for two years, and was ordered to pay costs of prosecution totalling £7. The offences were alleged to have taken place at a petrol station on Papanui Road. The Crown witnesses stated that the two accused were found in the petrol station, after it had been closed, by the owner, anc\ that Simpson had various articles in his possession. There was no evidence that Anderson had taken any goods. The jury’fe verdict was “not guilty.”

ATTACK ON GIRL.

AUCKLAND, May 10

A sentence of four years’ reformative detention was imposed by Mr. Justice Blair, in the Supreme Court, on Edward Russell Everett, found guilty of attempted rape.

His Honor said that as far as women were concerned, these were really the most serious cases that came before the Court. “Your case is a very bad one,” he said to the prisoner. “You attacked this girl on a lonely road and had you not been interrupted, there is not the slightest doubt that a very great wrong would have been done to the girl. Had it not been for the recommendation of the jury, I would have felt it my duty to impose a very'long sentence, but I always feel that I must give full effect to such recommendations. The jury made the recommendation on account of your youth, but you are not so young as you look; you are 29 years of age, and you certainly ought to have’ known better. The sentence should have been a very lengthy one, but I will give effect to the jury’s recommendation to this extent, that I will impose on you a sentence of reformative detention for a period of four years.”