THE STOKE CASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11536, 22 November 1900, Page 5

THE STOKE CASES.

[by TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington, Wednesday. Mr. Justice Edwards decided this morning, in reference to the Stoke Orphanage cases, that the counts in the indictment against Brother Kilian must bo taken separately. The intention of the Legislature was that the Court should exercise unrestrained discretion as to separating the trials, if that course were conducive to the ends of justice, and in this case, in which six separate assaults were alleged upon separate persons, and covering a period of two years, such a course was desirable.

The first of the Stoke cases begun in the afternoon, Jas. Solan (Brother Kalian) surrendering to his bail and pleading not guilty to a charge of having committed common assault on a boy named Jas. Joseph Owen, on May 30. Messrs. H. D. Bell and M. Myers prosecuted for the Crown, and Messrs. Skerrett, Fell, and Wilford appeared for the defence.

The case for the Crown was that Owen had been boxed on the ear, had his head punched, and was excessively beaten with a supplejack. i Mr. Bell said >he was not opening a case of gross brutality against the accused at all. It was a case of a strong man using improper violence to a boy. Owen in his evidence said he was now 16 years old, and entered the Stoke Orphanage in 1893. He narrated the circumstances under which the alleged assault was committed, the evidence being similar to that adduced before the Royal Commission in Nelson.

At the conclusion of Owen's evidence the Court adjourned till to-morrow, accused being admitted to bail, and the jury released for the night.