SULLIVAN, THE MURDERER, IN COURT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4296, 28 December 1874, Page 3

SULLIVAN, THE MURDERER, IN COURT.

(From the Melbourne Da ihj Telegraph, Dec. 17.) Thomas, alias Joseph, Sullivan, alias Frank Clarke, was brought before the City Bolice Court yesterday’, on a charge of being a convict illegally at large in tbe colony of Victoria; The Worshipful the Mayor presided on the bench. The prisoner stood in the dock and seemed quite unconcerned. He was dressed in black, and wore spectacles. His appearance is that of a very hard-featured man, with black hah*, moustache and whiskers, and small eyes, over which his forehead protrudes heavily. He appears to be about fifty years of ago, although bis face is deeply lined and furrowed. He was throughout his examination entirely self-pos-sessed, but several times displayed a considerable amount of tempter when allusions were made to his past career. ■ Mr. Superintendent Winch conducted the prosecution on behalf of the Crown, the prisoner being undefended. Mr. Winch said tbe prisoner was brought up under danse 2 of the Influx of Criminals Brevention Act. If the Bench was satisfied with his identity with Sullivan, the murderer, then there were three ways open to them in which to deal with him. The first was to sentence him to three years’ imprisonment, the secondto bind him on bail to leave the country within a certain time, and the third to remand him back to the country from whence he came. He would urge the Court to take the last-named course, and send him back to New Zealand, where he had already been sentenced to imprisonment for life, as there was no wish on the part of, the authorities to keep him in Victoria. Mr. Sturt ; We must have some evidence first, Mr. Winch, before deciding which course to adopt. Mr, Winch : He does not deny the fact of his identity, hut we have his own confession to the constable who arrested him, and the evidence of another witness. Senior-constable Francis Colvin was then called, and being sworn, taid ; I am stationed at Wedderbnrn. I know the prisoner. I arrested him on the 9th instant, on a charge of being a prisoner of the Crown convicted in New Zealand, and being illegally at large in this colony. I found him in the back room of a house belonging to a man named Stretch. The woman who was his -wife commenced to cry, and so did his son. He .then said —My name is not Sullivan ; I will never answer to that name ; but I am the man you are looking for all the same. I brought him to the lock-up. When there he talked very freely of his prison life in New Zealand, He said—When I was in prison there I had better times than the warders. He mentioned he had got away from New Zealand with great difficulty to London. He said he was recognised on the vessel going home all through a portrait of his wife. He had the. doctors fighting with one another about his identity, and said he would take an action -against one of them for saying he was Sullivan. Some of the passengers, he said, landed before the ship) reached London, and telegraphed there to say he was on board, so that the detectives were ready to meet him w’hen he landed. He said he had been all over England tx-ying to dodge the detectives. He went to France, and travelled through the greater part -of that country. He talked generally of his life in New Zealand and at home. Mr. Winch ; Now ask any questions you wish. Sullivan : I may remark to the Court that I do not wish to waste time, hut merely to correct a statement of the witness. Bart of his evidence is right, and part not. Your Worships will see that the witness’s evidence is moat inconsistent. I could not have said I was the man he was looking for, and yet denied that I was Sullivan. The thing is preposterous. I deny it in toto. To witness : Did you caution me on making the arrest ? Witness : No.

Sullivan : You see your Worships that is another highly reprehensible act on the part of the constable. He should have cautioned me in the usual way. I flatter myself I know the duty of a detective as well as anyone, and it is his duty to caution a prisoner on making an arrest. Judges both'here and in England have always ruled that this is necessary. The man got into a social conversation with me, and when he states such things as that I said while in prison X had better times than the warders — Mr. Winch ; Do you wish to ask any other questions ? Sullivan : No; I don’t want anyone to prove I am the man. I don’t deny it. I am the man. This is only occupying the time of the Court. Bernard O’Hagan, landlord of the Star of the West hotel, being sworn, said ; I was in New Zealand in ISCO. I was a warder in the Dunedin gaol. I know the prisoner here. I saw him in Dunedin. He was sentenced at Nelson to eighteen months' imprisonment before he came to Dunedin. ' He was sentenced for life for wilful murder, I heard. I did not see him doing penal servitude. The prisoner is the man.l saw there. Mr. Winch : Have you any qrrestions to ask ? Sullivan : I have one. To witness : You knew mo, you say, in the prison when you left ? Witness : Yes. Sullivan : Are you positive ? Witness : Yes. Sullivan ; Will you take your oath of that ? Witness ; It was between 1872 and ’73. Sullivan ; You did not leave then ; I saw you since. Witness : I came To Melbourne about the 18th June. I left on sick leave and returned to Dunedin. Sullivan I only wished to correct you. What led you to believe I was a prisoner there ? Witness : Your Worships, ho was undergoing sentence, dressed in prison clothes, and under care of a warder wherever he was sent. Sullivan ; Is that all that guides you to say that I was a prisoner ? Was I ever called on the roll of the muster-book ? Witness ; When you were at Port Chalmers I heard you called on the roll. I heard you on several occasions called, Sullivan ; In what year was that ? Witness ; I kept no note of the date. It was in 1873. Sullivan : I have no further questions. Mr. Winch : Do your Worships want' any more evidence 1 Mr. Sturt : No. Mr. Winch : This is the case then. May I repeat my application now that your Worships will send the prisoner back to New Zealand. Mr. Sturt,: That is a matter, Mr. Winch, for the consideration of the Bench. Mr. Winch ; Exactly, sir. I only suggest. The Worshipful the Mayor then passed the sentence of the Court upon the prisoner to the effect that he should be taken into custody and kept so until convenience offered for his transmission to Now Zealand, where he would be delivered over to the authorities, and if he over returned to Victoria he would be re-arrested and sentenced to three years’ solitary confinement in heavy irons. Sullivan : I have one remark to make. The manner in which I have been arrested is wrong. I want to bring it under your notice. Before I was arrested I sent my son a,vay to Sandhurst, with an order from me to get a box containing some clothes and other things. While he was away ho was arrested. • I told him when he got the box to bring it to me. When ho got to Sandhurst the first person he saw was a man—a constable—in the room where the box was. He left Sandhurst, and when halfway home he was stopped on the road, and the box forcibly taken from him. The box was opened, searched, and the things it contained detained. On my arrival in Sandhurst and Melbourne I made inquiries about it, but no information was given mo of it, and no inventory of the property given me. Mr. Winch ; We can make inquiries, your Worships, if necessary. Mr. Sturt: You can do so, if necessary, Mr. Winch. Sullivan then got rather excited, and said he stood before the court after thirty years' residence in the colonies, and no one could accuse him of ever having committed felony. Ho said ho was illegally tried, and he challenged the world to prove that there was even one tittle of evidence of his ever having committed murder. Ha had returned to tho colony

simply find solely to see his wife and chi] dren, and visited Victoria in. their interests to look after some property of his own. If he had stopped away he would have been a coldblooded man, and he therefore returned to Victoria. Ho had no intention of stopping in the colony, as his name was too notorious, and he would be only too glad to leave it. The prisoner was then removed. During the morning a large crowd of persons assembled about the precincts of the watchhouse yard and court, to try and catch a glimpse of Sullivan. Owing to the precautions of the police, however, all crushing within the court was prevented, although during his examination the watch-house yard was rushed by the people. The mob was, however, soon cleared, although a large number of persons still remained about the place until the time arrived for the removal of the prisoner.