MEIKLE IN LONDON.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 135, 24 May 1911, Page 11

MEIKLE IN LONDON.

■ “THE INJUSTICE I HAVE i SUFFERED.” ! •’ I WILL LECTURE BEFORE | THE BRITISH PEOPLE.” : Mr. John James Meikle, who. it will be remembered. w - as awarded =£250(1 compensation for wrongful , conviction on a charge of sheepstealing in the South Island many I years ago. has arrived in London, ! and lias got the ear of the big dailies. The following appears in the “ Daily Mail’s ” Overseas Edition : — “A Man’s T.onour. —Wrongful Conviction for Sheep-stealing. —A man for whom a special Parliamentary Bill was passed to estab- ■ lish his innocence of a charge of sheep-stealing, for which he was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude, is now in England, having just arrived from New Zealand. He is Mr. John James Meikle, a sturdy, hard-framed farmer, of 68 years, born in Scotland, who for nealy twenty - years has fought a stubborn fight, first to establish his innocence and then to obtain compensation. It was in 1887, at Invercargill, New Zealand, that John Meikle was tried for the offence of sheep-stealing, convicted, and sentenced. As soon as he was out of

prison he commenced his struggle to show that he was wrongly convicted. He succeeded in bringing to trial for perjury the chief witness for the prosecution. The prisoner w r as proved guilty and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. In that w«y was the ball set rolling, and as a final result, in I August, 1908, 4 An Act to reverse ] the conviction of John James Meikle on a charge of sheep-steal-ing,’ was placed upon the statute book of New’ Zealand. Under the Act every record of the judgment and conviction against Meikle and all prison records of his imprisonment were deemed to be expunged and deleted. A motion to award Meikle £‘sooo compensation was introduced in the New Zealand Parliament in December last, but the amount was reduced to £2500. Now.’ said Mr. Meikle on Monday, ‘ I have come to London in this year of the Imperial Conference to try and get the home authorities to take up my case and secure me the other £2500 compensation which it was originally intended I should have. I mean to i lecture before the British people upon the injustice I have suffered.’’