SUPREME COURT.

Mataura Ensign, 14 May 1912, Page 6

SUPREME COURT.

♦- CHRISTCHURCH. PEK UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. CHRISTCHURCH, May 13. At the Christchurch Supreme Court to-day, before Mr Justice Denniston, Edward Micliael Ward, alias Edward Taylor, for housebreaking and theft, was ord'ered to be returned to Burnham Industrial School. William Cooper, on two charges of forgery and uttering, was committed to the Salvation Army Home. Alfred Robinson and Edward Watson appeared in answer to charges of theft at Greymouth and Oliver Robinson to a charge of theft and of having I received stolen property. Robinson was j sentenced to six months' imprisonment ; on each charge and Watson to throe , months' imprisonment. | Jas. Bartley, for forgery and utteri ing a cheque for £23, received a six months' sentence. : Joseph Robinson, with several aliases, was sentenced Ix> four years' for assault and robbery. I DUNEDIN. ; The Supreme Court criminal sittings opened to-:lay. The list is slightly j 'longer than usual. The grand jury j found true bills in seven out of eight j cases, the case in which no true bill ! was found Iveing one where a youth rained j\iak>ney had been charged with committing an indecent act. Thomas Johnston, charged with having stolon three head of cattle at Oainaru, was acquitted. Stanley Charles Hilgendorf and Michael Begley, who pleaded guilty to charges of having stolen a postal packet from the railway office at Omakau, and having received £2O from the packet, were admitted to probation for 12 months. Peter Henry Greig pleaded guilty to i a charge of having stolen timber from 'Messrs Hogg and Co., and also to a , charge ox having received 1 , and sen--1 tenet* was deferred. ' James Alexander Greig pleaded not ' guilty to charges of theft of timber, ' the property of Messrs Hogg and Co., ' | and of having received. After the jury 'lliad deliberated for an hour, he was ' | found guilty on the second count, sen- " tence being deferred. 1 A WELLINGTON CASE. i WELLINGTON, May 13. I Costs arising from legal advice and l attendance in the Mewhinney v. Me- - 51 whinney divorce proceedings, etc., re--1! cently resolved by the Divorce Court, 3 1 were the subject of a case heard before 'I Mr Justice Cooper to-day. A jury of '■'. four had been empanelled, but it was j decided at a certain stage to discharge ' J them, and the case continued before > I His Honor alone. The parties were M Gray and Jackson, solicitors, Welling- | ton (plaintiffs), and Oliver Mewhinney, 1 civil servant, Wellington (defendant). 8 Mr M. Myers appeared for plaintiffs s and defendant appeared in person. It 1 j appeared from the statement of claim B j that Messrs Gray and Jackson acted r | for Mewliinney's wife (Nettie Lena Met whinney) in divorce proceedings in " March, 1910, wherein the wife obtained s a decree nisi, the court ordering the respoil dent {defendant in the x>resent ac tion) to pay tho petitioner's costs oi suit on the lowest scale, with an allowance of £ls 15s for one extra day t and the costs of interlocutory proceed- , ings was witnesses' expenses and dis bursements. Costs up to the decree nis were taxed l and allowed at £65 3s 6c ■- with witnesses' expenses and disbursea ments, amounting to £33 13s 6d, ant 3 defendant paid the sum of £97 13s ii i- satisfaction of such allowance. The v defendant afterwards paid the sum o: e £7 16s for party and party costs o: e subsequent orders for maintenance 'f etc. After giving credit for thesi sums, the defendant was still indebte; to plaintiffs in the sum of £254 5s 2d y Mewhinney, in bis statement of -d'e e fence, said that he had obeyed th order for payment by him of his wife' party and party costs; but declaret ' that the decree nisi was made by con 1_ sent of the parties, and not on th ' s merits of the case. He denied that h was indebted to plaintiffs in the sum o £254 5s 2d, or in any sum whatever 10 consequently he repudiated their bil ,r of costs, which he declared was exces Le sive ami exorbitant. For a further de • fence, he said that plaintiff's clien k" was not successful in her action, whicl was mainly over the custody of tin children, and which carried almost en tirely the whole of the expense. H< also alleged that the case was not fair ?> ly, properly, or reasonably incurred £ and that, had plaintiffs made prope r " investigations and inquiry, they wouli , x have seen that there was no proba bility of 'ultimate success. The case was not concluded whei l " the court rose.