CITY POLICE COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21642, 12 May 1932, Page 2

CITY POLICE COURT

Wednesday, May 11. (Before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M.)

A SERIOUS CHARGE. Edgar James Thom was charged with indecent assault on a male. —The court was cleared during the hearing of the evidence. —After reviewing the evidence, the magistrate said that it would be futile to send the case to the Supreme Court. The case was a suspicious one, but it depended entirely on the evidence of a boy of tender years, which was in no way corroborated by the account given by his mother. In the circumstances the accused must be discharged. THEFT OF WIRELESS SETS. Albert Edward Arthur Hamilton appeared for sentence on a charge of stealing a wireless set valued at £27 10s, the property of Adam Edgar Clark, and was further charged with the theft, at Wellington, of a wireless set belonging to Messrs Loverstam and Co.—Chief Detective Young said that the accused was discharged from prison on April 10. He booked a room in a hotel in Wellington and whilst there he obtained a wireless set on approval, and hud it installed in the building, selling it later to a dealer for £O. He then came on to Dunedin, and after staying with relatives for a few days, he booked a room at an hotel in the city, and obtained another wireless set in the same manner as he had done previously. The accused had a fairly long list, and it seemed as if he were a hopeless case.—Counsel for the defence explained that the accused had been sent to a home when he was 12 years of age, and since then he had been more or less thrown on his own resources. —A sentence of three months’ imprisonment with hard labour was imposed on each charge. A further charge of the theft of a wireless set at Christchurch was preferred against the accused, who, on the application of Chief Detective Young, vug remanded to appear at Christchurch oil May 17.