DOUBLE-HEADED PENNIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20867, 6 November 1929, Page 6

DOUBLE-HEADED PENNIES.

ALLEGED COUNTERFEITING PLANT.

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY.

(Peb United Press Association.)

NAPIER, November 5. Phillip Whelan Darragh was charged in the Supreme Court to-day with having in his possession an instrument adapted for and intended for counterfeiting copper coins.

A detective stated in evidence that he had occasion to interview the accused in Hastings, in the course of which Darragh produced a sot of soldering tools, stating that they were for making double-headed pennies, which, he said, were worth 5s each.

Questioned by Mr Justice Ostler, witness stated that the set was complete with tlic exception of the solder for the splitting of the pennies. There was some very fine wire solder found in the accused’s hag, but this was not produced in the lower court.

The prisoner at this stage pointed out that the split pennies found upon him had rings upon them, indicating that they had been turned on a lathe. He asked his Honor to examine the pennies, and his Honor did so, remarking that three certainly bore the mark of having been turned on a lathe, hut the fourth looked to him to have been cut by a hacksaw.

The prisoner (to witness) : How could you make a job of soldering two split pennies together?

Witness; I am not a plumber, neither am I versed in counterfeiting. His Honor, after an examination of the hacksaw, stated that it appeared that the blade was too thick .for sawing down the centre of appeared to him as though’ it was more’ adapted for woodwork. The accused, in evidence, stated that on the day he was arrested (ib showed the police the outfit and said he was going to experiment with these pennies to try and join them together. The tails were ground off on a lathe in an engineering shop. The Crown Prosecutor: Where were they ground down?—l won’t divulge that.

What were you going to do?—I was going to make double-headed pennies, but I had not made any at that time. What was the blowlamp for?—lt is part of the soldering outfit. The prisoner went back into the dock and addressed the jury, pointing out that the tools he had were totally un suitable for making double-headed pennies. “ There is a way of making them and I could demonstrate it there,” lie said, pointing to the legal table, “but it is not that way.” Summing up, his Honor said the case was a simple one. First of all, the prisoner said he was intending to make double-headed pennies, and then he said the tools that he had were not suitable It looked to him as though the accused was right and that the saw was merely a fretsaw for cutting wood. That, how ever, did not finish the matter, for the accused had in his possession a complete soldering outfit without solder and he had told them that he intended to make double-headed pennies. There was then the question whether the making of double-headed pennies constituted counterfeiting, and a court of three judges in New South Wales had decided that it did. The whole qliestion for the jury to decide was whether or not the instruments found in the accused’s pos session were suitable for the work for which it was alleged they were intended. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and the prisoner was accordingly discharged. *