SUPREME COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20743, 14 June 1929, Page 8

SUPREME COURT.

NEW TRIAL ORDERED. (Pek United Press Association.) HAMILTON, June 13. In the Supreme Court the jury disagreed in the case against Vlademar Knight Vale, charged with stealing furniture from the residence of James Reid Stewart between December, 1925 and December, 1936. ■ Stewart was absent from home during 1920, when the goods disappeared, and the missing property was recently found in the accused’s house at Turua. The accused,previously lived near Stewart and Morrinsville. For the defence the accused and his wife declared that they,had bought the goods from one named Young. A' new trial was ordered. ■' PRISONERS SENTENCED. (Pee United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 13. Oliver William Joseph Wright was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for theft as a servant by Mr Justice MacGregor. Wright was a clerk in the Money Order Office at Wanganui, where he .retained £BO, and lent it to a friend. According to counsel, he was making every endeavour to refund the^money prior to his arrest, and had raised £IOO on his life policy when the arrest; was made. Mr Justice MacGregor said that Wright must have known very well what he. was doing when he took the money. He was a postal officer in a position of trust. William Henry Cooper, for breaking, entering and theft at Wanganui, was ordered two years’ reformative detention. John Langlois Maxwell Lefroy, for theft as a bank servant and forgery at Pahratua, was ordered two years’ Borstal detention. William Robert James Miller, for theft as ' a farm manager at Levin, received sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment. Lewis Edmund Rohloff and'William James Ashmore, each aged 16 years, were sentenced to four years in the Borstal Institution. To-day for breaking and entering and theft.; His Honor stressed the fact that discipline was needed to prevent them entering on a life of crime. Prank Lewis, for forgery and uttering, theft and false pretences, with a record extendmg back some years in Australia, will have to serve three years in gaol, this being the longest of the concurrent terms imposed by his ' Honor on tli» charges.

SEVERE SENTENCES IMPOSED. (Per United Press Association.) WESTPORT, June 13.' In the Supreme Court this morninm before Mr Justice Adams, Colin Clyde Austin and George Eden Charles Hayward, for rape, were sentenced to seven years imprisonment, his Honor feaying that there were no' circumstances justifying leniency. Christopher George Curtain, Robert John Douglas Kitto, and George Thomas Howell, for unlawful carnal knowledge were each sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. Louis Franklin Pain, on ta. similar charge, was found not guilty.