SUPREME COURT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8652, 10 February 1914, Page 6

SUPREME COURT

CRIMINAL SITTINGS Press Association. DUNEDIN February 9. Tbe criminal sittings opened before Mr Justice Sim this morning. Thomas Angus pleaded guilty to the theft of a Gladstone bag, the property of the bandmaster of the Tinmru Band, on an express train. He was sentenced to three years* reformative tieatment, William Sinclair was acquitted on a charge of committing an indecent assault on a girl fifteen years of age near Alexandra, and Thomas Dram, an old man. was acquitted on a charge of indecently assaulting a girl seven years old at Balclutha. CHRISTCHURCH, February 9. The quarterly criminal sitting of the Supreme Court opened to-day, before His Honour 'Mr Justice Deuniston. There was a heavy list for trial—easily a record numerically. His Honour, in addressing the grand jury, said the calendar was an exceedingly formidable-looking one, consisting of forty-four charges against twenty°threa persons. It was considerably the heaviest calendar in' his experience of a quarter of a century, but it was not so formidable as it looked, and did not indicate any special increase in the criminal element* or in tho general good conduct of the district. Thirty of the charges were in connection with an alleged series of frauds on the. Customs, in which the persons charge# were six mercantile clerks and two Customhouse officer. The frauds had been spread over nineteen months, and although they did not involve conspiracy between the persons charged, the amount involved was £BOO or £9OO. His Honour briefly outlined the nature of the charges, and stated that as far as the Crown was concerned there was a clear case against the clerks concerned, and in the case of the Customhouse officers tho lefxistenco of continuous carelessness in tho checking of invoices and prime entries, coupled with the fraudulent act of the clerks, would make out a case for a petty jury. The jury returned true bills in all cases except in the case of J. C. Ashwin, charged with a breach of the Bankruptcy; Act in not keeping proper books. This bill was thrown out and Ashwin was discharged. Sentences were passed as follows: — Stephen Golding, theft, declared an habitual criminal; Charles Larsen, burglary, four months.; Norman Leonard Findlay, forgery (five charges), eighteen months; Alfred Howard, theft (four charges), ordered to come up for sentence when called upon; Frederick Charles Dyson, theft of a ring, four months; Matilda S. Streeter, theft, committed to the Salvation Army Home for twelve months; Frederick Jackson, theft of; a motor-cycle, sentence deferred.