A VILLAGE CONSPIRACY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9307, 16 September 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

A VILLAGE CONSPIRACY.

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF WHOLE-

SALE PERJURY. At the Newcastle Assizes recently four young miners of Bebside Colliery were found guilty of perjury in connection with an affiliation case. The Lord Chief Justice remarked that the prisoners had not only been found to have given false evidence, but had degraded the character of the young woman in a disgraceful manner. They must each go to penal eervitute for three years. The case is in many respects a very remarkable one, and has excited a great deal of interest in the north of Eng--land. All the parties belong to the village of Bebaide, and the source of the trouble is found in an affiliation case, first heard at Blyth in November last, when Mary Ann Todd summoned Thomas Dawson Oliver for an order to contribute towards the maintenance of 'her illegitimate child, of which she alleged him to be the father. On that occasion' the evidence was so conflicting that the magistrates disagreed as to their decision. The hearing was in the month following transferred to Bedlington Petty Sessions, and the magistrates refused to grant the order asked for. But the evidence then tendered in Oliver's defence was of such a character that on January 2 following, Oliver, with his wit- ' nessesThornton, Wetheratt, Rutherford, Graham, and Cheyne— charged with having committed wilful and corrupt perjury. The charge against Cheyne fell through, and that against Graham was adjourned until after the assizes, to which the other four were committed for trial. These assizes were held last February, when Oliver himself, Wetheratt, and Rutherford were convicted, and each sentenced to seven months' imprisonment. The judge, Sir Gainsford Bruce, then called before him three of the witnesses who had given evidence on behalf of Rutherford, namely, Cheyne, Taylor, and Hinson, and intimated i his opinion that they too oughb to be proI secuted for perjury. The jury disagreed in the case of Thornton, and it was decided that he should be re-tried at the summer assizes. In the meantime Graham absconded to America, and has so far escaped an assize trial. A new trial for Thornton was commenced, and after him Cheyne, Taylor, and Hinson were also indicted for perjury. Two distinct juries severally found Thornton and Cheyne guilty, and a third jury convicted Taylor and Hinson. They were then, each and all, sent to penal servitude for three years by the Lord Chief Justico of England—Lord Coleridgebefore whom the cases wore heard. The number of convictions in this instance increases the enormity of the crime. It is clearly revealed that the whole of the prisoners had entered into a deliberate and disgraceful conspiracy to bear false witness against the unfortunate girl, Mary Ann Todd, that they might extricate their friend and companion, Thomas Oliver, from the meshes of the law. The immediate result of thin conspiracy has been to harass, almost beyond human endurance, a poor girl who has had to hawk, from court to court, and in the presence of her neighbours, the story of her fall and shame, no doubt long and bitterly repented of,