SUPREME COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1929, Page 7

SUPREME COURT

HUSBAND ACQUITTED MISLED BY WIFE’S STORY (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, August 2. In the Supreme C art, Robert Francis Maddox, aged 27 charged with attempting to murder Jerko Didovich, a Dalmatian, and alternatively with assaulting him, was found not guilty. Evidence was given that Maddox and Didovich worked at the same quarry, and were great friends. Maddox’s wife made grave allegations against the Dalmatian, and Maddox tried to fire an old automatic revolver at him, but it would not go off. His wife latei’ admitted that the allegation was false. Accused, in evidence, said he had forgiven his wife, and they were living together again. Mr. Sullivan, counsel for accused, emphasised the extreme provocation under which the accused acted. The test was whether the provocation he had received was such as to deprive him of his powers of control. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Meredith, said the effect of the provocation was to mitigate the penalty, but not to convert a guilty act into an innocent one. Mr. Justice Herdman, summing up, said it was no doubt perfectly true accused was distressed beyond measure, but it could not be said he acted on the spur of the moment. He went about making deliberate preparations. The jury took less than fifteen minutes to decide upon a verdict of acquittal. SENTENCES AT DUNEDIN. DUNEDIN, August 2. The Criminal Sessions of the Supreme Court concluded this afternoon, when four prisoners were called before Mr Justice Kennedy for sentence. Raymond Theodore Padman, for breaking and entering the shop of a blind pensioner’ and stealing cigarettes and other goods to the value of £B6/6/-, was ordered to be detained in a Borstal Institute for two years, 1 the sentence to be concurrent with 1 that he is now serving in the Insti- i tute. i

Wm. Ramsden Avery, charged with theft of a motor car, with breaking and entering (six charges), and with escaping from Dunedin Prison, was ordered to be detained in the Borstal Institute for a period of two years on each charge, the sentences to be concurrent.

Edward Gillespie, for forging cheques in South Otago, was ordered to be detained for reformative purposes for a period of 18 months. Frederick Arthur Lloyd, until recently clerk of Maniototo County Council, received a sentence of one year’s hard labour for theft of money, and thereafter to be detained for reformative purposes for a further period of one year. On a charge of failing to pay certain moneys into a bank, he was convicted and discharged. Accused broke down on hearing his sentence and had to be assisted from the dock by a police officer.

Walter Reynolds Sanders, who had already pleaded guilty to the theft of mail bags in Dunedin, was not called on, as he is at present in hospital.