SUPREME COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19957, 26 November 1926, Page 10

SUPREME COURT.

NEW PLYMOUTH SESSIONS. (Per United Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, November 25. In the Supreme Court the Chief Justice (Mr Justice Skerrett) sentenced Charles William Hall for making false documents at Stratford. He was admitted to 12 months’ probation. Henry Ernest Ferguson- and Samuel Lee, for forging and uttering a cheque at Patea, were admitted to two years’ probation. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the case in which Joseph Signal was charged with being an accomplice in the theft of a large sum of money at Patea belonging to an old man named Rasmussen, who had buried it in Hie garden. HAMILTON SITTINGS. (Pee United Press Association.) HAMILTON, November 25. Laurence Burton was charged with the theft of two motor cycles, at the Supreme Court to-day. The evidence showed that accused purchased two old second-hand machines, and then stole two comparatively new ones. After interchanging the parts he threw the remainder of all four machines into tho river. He was found guilty of one charge, and pleaded guilty to the second. In sentencing prisoner to 12 months’ hard labour m each charge, the sentences to be concurrent, his Honor remarked that the thefts had been carried out with considerable ingenuity. Motor.' thieves could take the case as a warning of the severity with which they would bo dealt with in future. WELLINGTON SESSIONS. (Special to Daili Times.) WELLINGTON, November 25. The following prisoners were sentenced by Mr Justice Alpers in the Supreme Court to-day:— Timi Piti, who answered to two charges of housebreaking and theft, was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. Phillip Scorringe, aged 47 years, a married man, was sentenced to three years’ hard labour for incest. In passing sentence his Honor said it was very dreadful that a man who had a large family of children should in middle if.' be seized by this horrible sexual perversion, and behave himself like a beast. The police report stated that the prisoner had been a good worker. If the prisoner had lived in a sterner age the cat-o’-nine-tails would have been used on him with considerable vigour. Fortunately, he did not live in such a time, and his Hi nor personally thought that punishment 'a that form brutalised a man, rather than gave him a chance of recovering himself. His Honor referred to the fact that ta-3 prisoner’s family must suffer, but held the view that the prisoner would have to be kept apart for some time. In imposing a sentence of three years’ hard labour his Honor said-he hoped for the prisoner's own sake that the labour would be as hard as possible, so that it might purge his system of some of the filth which ran through it. Horace Clifton Allen, who appeared for sentence for the theft of £ll2 from Leslie Traill, licensee of the Carlton Hotel, was sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour.