NAVAL COURT-MARTIAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 256, 28 September 1932, Page 7

NAVAL COURT-MARTIAL.

CONTINUATION OF HEARING.

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Sept. 28. The trial by a naval court-martial of Petty Officer Samuel George Adams, a supply petty officer in the sloop laburnum, was continued to-day. Accused is charged, inter alia with fraudulently converting £l7 10s Bd. Addressing the Court, civilian counsei for the defence paid a tribute to the -fairness with which the evidence for the prosecution had been presented. Ho said the evidence of naval medical officers, that accused s neurasthenic condition was principally due to alcoholism, would he contradicted and it would be proved that his action in wandering off the ship m the early hours of the morning was due to neurasthenia not caused by alcohol. Counsel said the failure to keep books by which issues of clothing could be checked made it impossible to produce evidence such as would be needed to ■justify a conviction in any criminal Court. Adequate proof of the charge of fraudulent conversion was impossible from “the hotch-potch of blundering and inaccuracy ’ which the evidence had disclosed, counsel con-, tended.