BRUGES AND GOODMAN

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1798, 22 August 1906, Page 20

BRUGES AND GOODMAN

THE CHRISTCHURCH THEFT OASES. GOODMAN IMPRISONED FOR TWO YEARS. BRUGES APPLIES FOR NEW TRIAD CHRIST CHURCH, August 14. Francis Henry Bruges, solicitor, and James Goodman, his clerk, of Christchurch, who were found guilty yesterday of charges of stealing £260 and £2OO, the property of Henry Tuck, were brought before Mr Juetice Cooper at the Supreme Court this morning for sentence. Goodman was sentenced to two years* imprisonment. Application was made on behalf of Bruges for leave to apply for a new trial. In giving judgment, Mr Justice Cooper said that in hie summing up he had directed the jury that there was evidence from which they might infer criminal knowledge on the part of Bruges, also that it Avas open to them to infer culpable neglect not meaning a criminal knowledge. He had also directed them that where the evidence was capable of two inferences —cne sinister to the prisoner and one in his favour—it was proper to take the broad inference, that was, in favour of his want of knowledge. The jury took the view that there was criminal knowledge. It would be entirely improper for him to express any opinion beyond saying that he thought there was an arguable case on the prisoner’s behalf. He thought the surrounding circumstances in connection Avitli Bruges Avere suoh as to justify him in saying that. Be should, therefore, give leave to i,apply to the Court of Appeal at the October sitting for a neAv trial, and should defer sentence until after the decision of that Court. He would admit prisoner to bail until the October sitting, but it Avould have to be substantial. The securities required would be- — prisoner in £SOO and two substantial sureties of £250 each. The sureties would have to be approved by the Crown. Counsel for Goodman urged that as the charge was a general one of theft, he should be sentenced under the section of the Criminal Code which contained the shortest term to be served as the maximum punishment. Hi.s Honor, in sentencing the prisoner, said that Goodman had been leading an apparently respectable life morally, and had not hitherto offended against the laws of the country. Yet the evidence Avae conclusive that he was a man of utterly untruthful disposition, and that he obtained the moneys from Tuck under an admittedly deliberate untruthful statement. Therefore, whatever his general character as a father or a family and a member of the Methodist Church, in his business life he was admittedly an untruthful, unreliable man. Counsel had suggested that his defects were defects of the head, and not defects of the heart, but hie Honor could not draAV a distinction between the head and the heart Avlien a man went to another, as prisoner did to Tuck, and obtained £260 by means of a deliberately false statement as to security which, he never possessed. That man must have not only a disease of the head, but a disease of the heart as well. His Honor then sentenced Goodman to two yearsi’ imprisonment, the full penalty of the minimum punishment.