SUPREME COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 September 1925, Page 9

SUPREME COURT.

SENTENCES AT WELLINGTON. IBY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION-) WELLINGTON, Sep. 14. At the Supreme' Court to-day, Mr Justice MacGregor -sentenced the. undermentioned prisoners who had pleaded guilty in the lower court: Marcus Stapleton Alfred Mouldey, for attempted rape, reformative detention for two years"; William Henry Gibbons, 18 ;months’ imprisonment for theft. Charles Fineham, aged 60, for bigamy, was sentenced to imprisonment till the rising of the court and ordered to pay costs of the prosecution. The case was. quite an unusual one, and there .were circumstances which inclined the judge to leniency. Counsel for the prisoner said tlie latter had pleaded guilty and had then sought to withdraw his plea'. He asked the judge to take the, course taken by Justice Ijlosking in 1919, who had held that the court could-' not set aside or quash a plea of guilty because the depositions did not : justify the offence charged. He ashedi’ the judge to convict "the prisoner, hut to set him free at the rising of the court. His Honor said that the legal position was clear. Taking the man’s infirmity into consideration and the fact that' he had been in gaol for some weeks, he would order his imprisonment till the rising of the court,

A CHRISTCHURCH SENTENCE. CHRISTCHURCH, Sep. 14. At the Supreme Court this- morning, Merv.vri Banks, aged 35, for theft of £425 from the Canterbury Agricultural College, was sentenced to reformatory treatment for 12 months. Judge Reed suggested that there should be stricter supervision of books in Government and similar services.