JUDGE ANNOYED

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 July 1939, Page 5

JUDGE ANNOYED

JURY ACQUITS OLD OFFENDER LONDON, June 1. When a jury at Dorset Assizes today brought in a verdict of not guilty against James Morton, 31, a barber, who said his correct name was James Morton Marlow, Mr. Justice Hawke said to him: “That means you may go. But I know, and you know, how often you have been in prison. Is it 15 times?”

Morton agreed that it was. Mr. Justice Hawke, nodding towards the jury, continued: “You see, they did not know that. You had bet-

ter be careful about getting into windows in future.”

Turning to the jury the judge observed: ’’Fifteen times! And you believed that story.” He discharged them from further duty and added: “You can go, and you need not come back.” Morton was accused of entering a house with intent to commit a felony and of “breaking out” of the house. Miss Winifred Golder, of Wimborne road, Bournemouth, stated that at 11.15 p.m. she found Morton hiding behind the curtains in a ground-floor bedroom. He mumbled something about having followed a blonde girl into the house.

She agreed with Mr. Guy W. Willett, defending, that one of the occupants of the house was blonde.

Morton, in evidence, declared that on the previous night he lost money when he went to a Wimborne-road flat with two girls. On the night of

the alleged offence he saw a girl like one of his previous companions and she threatened to fetch a, policeman when he spoke to her. He was not sure if she was the same girl. When she went into a house and no lights were switched on he concluded that she did not use the lights because she was the girl

he was looking for. The judge, summing up, said it was for the jury to decide if the story about the blonde girl was a mere excuse. It was a somewhat unusual method of getting back £2/10/-. Why did not Mbrton use the front door? Morton was discharged.