SUPREME COURT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 143, 15 June 1909, Page 7

SUPREME COURT.

[press association.]

AUCKLAND, June 14. At the Supreme Court to-day, Henry Terawhiti, a Maori, found guilty of perjury, in whose case the jury made a recommendation to mercy on the ground that he had been the catspaw of a clever criminal, appeared for sentence. Mr Justice Edwards said that the jury, did not know the facts as he did. Had not the solicitor in the case in which perjury was committed concealed a shorthand writer in the room in which the conversation between the parties had been held, the other man would have been convicted and Terawhiti have escaped scot free. Perjury committed with the object of getting another man convicted v/as a vicious and serious offence. A sentence of seven years' imprisonment was inflicted. Richard White, on forty cliarges of theft, was given seven years in gaol, th© Judge stating that the sentence was made the more severe because, this being the first time of capture, he could not sentence the prisoner as an habitual criminal. George Mack, for breaking, entering, theft, receiving and. false pretences, got two years; William Knox, for theft of a penny-in-the-slot birdcage, was sentenced to three years, and declared an habitual criminal. Edward Knox for receiving, received eighteen months.