DECLARED AN OUTLAW

Hawera Star, Volume L, 5 March 1931, Page 7

DECLARED AN OUTLAW

CITIZEN LOSES RIGHTS. PROPERTY MAY BE FORFEITED. Tlie terrible sentence of outlawry, by which a person loses all his rights as a citizen, was pronounced on a fugitive from justice at Inverness during December. Sentence of outlawry had not been pronounced iu Great Britain for 36 years before last March, when an Edinburgh chartered accountant forfeited his. bail and failed to answer a charge of embezzlement.'; : - . • The sentence means that tlie outlaw Is placed outside the jurisdiction of tlie law ; Has no Parliamentary rights;

May be arrested without warrant, Cannot hold .property; and May forfeit to the State any property lie has. The sentence was pronounced when Lord Alness presided at tlie trial of George Gunn, a shipmaster, on charges connected with the foundering of the ketch Sutherlandskire Lass off Sr. Abbs Hoad in June, 1929.

NOT GUILTY PLEA. Gunn pleaded not guilty to charges of having failed to make use of theship’s pump, to dismantling the pump in order to render it unfit for use, and to driving a crowbar between deck planks whereby the seams were opened and water penetrated into the hull. Gunn was also accused, with Andrew Boss, manager of the ship, of fraudulently inducing Alexander McLean to make a sworn deposition iu the name of George McAllister, a seaman, stating that he was a member of the crew when the vessel sank. Ross, however, failed to appear, and the judge pronounced sentence of outlawry against him.