SUPREME COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 14 February 1930, Page 3

SUPREME COURT.

PRISONERS SENTENCED AT AUCKLAND. (By Telegraph—Vress Association.) AUCKLAND, Feb. 12. In the Supreme Court prisoners were sentenced by Air. justice Smith as follow: Charles Mozart Spinley, for bigamy and false declaration, two years’ hard labour; James Anthony Lynch, for receiving stolen goods, eighteen months’ reformative detention ; Edward Richard Black, for theft (two counts) and attempted theft, three years’ hard labour; David Todd, theft, two years’ hard labour; Claude Paget, theft, one year's’ hard labour. Todd and Paget were associated with Black in one theft. Derek Norman Moore Wright, for negligent driving, and causing death, was fined £IOO and dis license was cancelled for three years by Mr. Justice Herdman to-day. Thomas Leonard Williams, for theft and false pretences, was sentenced to two years’ probation; Frederick Dixon, for breaking and entering and theft, to 18 months’ hard labour; David Barry, for theft, forgery, and false pretences, to three years at a Borstal Institute; David Henry Mehaffey, for the theft of a cow, to two year’s reformative detention; Sydney Charles Marshall, tor indecent assault on a female, two years at a Borstal Institute; Alan ] Alexander Cuthbertson, for indecent ■ asasult on a child, to two years’ re- ; formative detention. i Sydney Herbert Norman, for in- , decent assault on a male and one on i a female, was . sentenced to seven ; years’ hard labour. The Judge said j that he could order the prisoner to be ] flogged, and perhaps lie should do so but for the fact that he suspected the prisoner might be mentally unbalanced. IMPRISONMENT FOR SEVEN YEARS. < AUCKLAND, Feb. 12. : Maud Herbert, aged 49, for unlaw- . fully using an instrument, was sen- ( fenced to seven years’ imprisonment } by Air. Justice Herdman. ] His Honour said that, but for the fact that some members of the grand ( jury were apparently unable to take ] the correct view of the .statutory limi- c tations of their legal duties, Herbert would have stood her trial for mur- j ler. He had no doubt that the prison- t ar was directly responsible for the t young woman’s death Never before in bis career had he listened to a story - so shocking and so utterly revolting.) * t r GRAY BROTHERS’ CRIMES. v \ b h SENTENCE DEFERRED v h CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 12. , v In expectation of Charles Robert fray and James Wilfred Gray being , entenced the Supreme Court was 0 rowded. Those, who attended heard a ong address by the young men’s coun- r: el. but Air. Justice Adams said he 1 i-ished to consider carefully all that Jr. Burns had said, and lie would not * iass sentence until Friday. 0 Air. Burns gave most of his time nd attention to Charles Robert Gray,. S Z lie younger brother who shot E. H. I j lammond, and whom Air. Burns de- h cribccl as the ring-leader in “this ex- ti raordiuary series of crimes.” Conn- "■ el added that the judge would appro- g iate that it was very difficult for si ounsel to say anything whatever in litigation in the face of the large v umber of crimes the brothers bad ti ommitted, bub it was very important a; bat everything connected with the pi oung men and their crimes* should oi e placed before the court. The fain, a: ,v was in peor circumstances, as the a ither could not get regular employ- ] a lent Counsel appealed for leniency a the ground of the youth of the prisaers and urged that both be declared j abitual criminals, as they then would, 3 under the control of the Prisons he oard. rc tr