A LEGAL PUZZLE

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11438, 7 February 1923, Page 6

A LEGAL PUZZLE

WHY WAS HE SENTENCED?

A CHARGE WHICH BECAME ANOTHER. The silent figure of fair-haired William Walker Johnstone, in the dock at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, was the centre of quite a little discussion. Accused took his stand to answer a charge of having been fined £5 for drunkenness, which constituted a breach of the terms of his probation. As explained by Mr A. B. Sievwright, solicitor for the accused, the facts were that- Johnstone had been placed upon a term -of three years’ probation at Auckland, two years and four months ago. in August of last year he had been fined £5 for drunkenness at Christchurch. On January -inn of this year he had been fined a similar sum for drunkenness at Nelson.' He escaped from custody after having been arrested on a charge of commit-ting a breach of his probation terms. He was rearrested and sent to Wellington to bo dealt with by the Supreme Court, this time on the charge of escaping. On Monday Johnstone was before the higher court cn a charge which, however, counsel contended, was similar to the one on which he was held yesterday. By Mr Justice Chapman he had been admitted to probation for a further term of three years. Sir T. P. Mills, Chief Probation Officer, had a different idea of what had transpired. Johnstone, he said, had been before the higher court on the charge of escaping from custody, and had been sentenced on that charge. “He could not he granted a further term of probation for a breach of probation,” he said. “The penalty for that is three months’ imprisonment or a fine of £2O. Or, alternately, a man may be brought up on the original charge. “I don’t want to rub it in,” he concluded. “I intended to ask Your Worship to convict him and ask him to come up for sentence when called upon.” Sir SievwTight: But the Registrar read out the charge against this man as a breach of probation. Mr Mills admitted that a mistake had been made at first in the higher court, but still contended that Johnston© wa6 sentenced upon the charge of escaping from custody. Senior-Sergeant Lander: The police record shows that that is so, sir. Counsel then advanced the view that His Honour had sentenced the prisoner with full knowledge of the facts, and urged that the charge should he withdrawn. His Worship, under the circumstances, decided to adjourn the case.