INQUIRY AT MOUNT EDEN GAOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9322, 27 March 1889, Page 5

INQUIRY AT MOUNT EDEN GAOL.

An inquiry was held yesterday at the Mount Eden Gaol before the Visiting Justices, Messrs. T. Thompson (M.H.R)and 0. Roche, into certain charges against Assistant-Warder Felton for assisting' or conniving in respect of bringing' surreptitiously and wrongfully into the gaol a number of articles for the use of one of the prisoners, or so_ neglecting his duty as to allow of its being done. An ex-prisoner, named Hood, was tried this week at. the Police Court and acquitted of a charge of introducing these articles into the gaol. Dr. Laishley appeared for Felton, who had been suspended from duty and placed under arrest.

Evidence was given by the Foreman of Works, the Chief Warder, Mr. Reston, prisoner Cockhead, and ex-prisoner Hood. The evidence showed that Felton was in charge of the gaol during thenight of Friday, 15th inst., when it is supposed the articles were brought in. But against this circumstance was the evidence of the foreman of works that the goods might have been introduced without any complicity or neglect on the part of the warder in charge ; that the night orderly officer, who visited Felton at an uncertain hour on Friday night, reported satisfactorily concerning his watch; and that Felton did not possess the keys of the outer gates that night. Dr. Laishley, in addressing the Justices at the close of the evidence, pointed out that there was not a scintilla of evidence against Felton, and urged that to find him cuilty would be to assume his guilt, leaving him to prove his innocence, a proceeding alien to all the principles of British criminal law.

The Justices gave no decision, as their duty was merely to transmit the evidence, with their report thereon. We have since learned that the order suspending Mr. Felton from duty has been removed, and that he has resumed office, so that the Justices have probably concluded that there was nothing whatever in the charges laid against him.