SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25142, 5 February 1943, Page 2

SUPREME COURT

CHARGE OF RECEIVING VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY I The quarterly sessions of the Supreme j Court were continued yesterday before ! Mr Justice Kennedy, when the hearing of the charge against James Allan Godso, of receiving property knowing it to nave been stolen, was concluded. The accused was called on to answer seven charges. Continuing his evidence, the accused maintained that all the jewellery he had bought was "junk," and was only of value as old gold. He had sold the camera to a man named Jackson, but it had been returned to him shortly after by Jackson, and he had never come oack for it. He did not know where Jackson was now. The fact that Kelly came to him to sell a watch, the initials on which were other than his own, did not arouse his suspicions. He often had watches for lepair the initials on which did not correspond with those of the people bringing them in. Kelly was prepared to sell the watch for old gold value. There was no particular reason why he should not have told the police the whole story when they called on him on November 6 other than that he was ill and should not have been at work. Godso admitted, in answer to his Honor, that he told the detectives that the camera he had bought from Kelly was one which had come in for repair, He forgot at the time that he had bought it from Kelly. He knew that his brother had been employed by Reslau, Ltd., in Auckland for 12 months, but he did not know for sure that he was living on the firm’s premises as a fire-watcher. When the parcels of dress materials arrived from Auckland it .did not strike him as suspicious, although one parcel had been partly opened th ough damage in transit, and he could see that it contained dress materials. He thought that the goods might be some of his brother’s stock from the shop he had had in Princes street, Dunedin, 12 months before. Mr Adams referred to a conviction against witness's brother for theft (two charges) in August, 1935, at Dunedin. Godso said that this fact was within his knowledge at the time he received the parcels from his brother, but this did not strike him as suspicious. Addresses by Counsel

Mr O. G. Stevens, in his address to the jury on behalf of the accused, said there was no -question that the goods had been stolen but the jury had to be satisfied that the accused had known that they were stolen when he had received them. The jury had to remember that Kelly was an informer. Counsel then analysed the evidence, and said that the accused had made very little profit on the sales of the jewe lery. The accused had had an honourable record until this allegation had been made against him, and on September 24 last ,had been granted a secondhand dealer s licence after the police had made investigations. Had the accused been guilty, the first thing he would have done wou!d have been to put the gold into the melting pot. Mr Adams (Crown Prosecutor) said that the case came down to one point—whether the accused had known that the goods he had received had been stolen. The receiver of stolen goods occupied a key position. “ Here is the accused,” said counsel, " found in possession of stolen goods from Auckland and also proved to have passed through his hands other stolen articles. Your problem can be locked at as a single one. Did he really know that these various articles were stolen when he received them? And in order to determine that your duty is to consider all the circumstances of the case. If you can come to a conch.'s'o-' with regard to any one c-f thes° a’•titles that the accused' r <sl have known that it was stolen, then you can bring that into consideration in regard to the other articles, and doubtless you will feel that it is inevitable that he possessed some guilty knowledge with regard to all.”

After his Honor had summed up, the jury retired at 4 o’clock, and returned at two minutes to 8 with a verdict of not guilty on each count. Two Years’ Imprisonment

Thomas William Parry, who had pleaded guilty in the Lower Court to a charge of breaking and entering a shop at Dunedin and committing theft, and also pleaded guilty to breaking and. entering a warehouse at Gore and a counting house at Invercargill, and also to a charge of theft at Invercargill, came up for sentence.

’’ It appears,” his Honor said to the prisoner, " that in one case you broke and entered premises by night and stole tyres, and then later wantonly threw them into a river. The theft was of petrol. You have a long record of dishonesty during the past nine years. On each charge of. breaking, entering, and theft the sentence o-f the court is that you be imprisoned with hard labour for two years, and that on the charge of theft you be Imprisoned with hard labour for three months. These sentences are to be concurrent.” • .3. Youthful Offender

Robert Anderson Ferguson appeared for sentence on a charge of breaking and entering a counting house in Dunedin with intent to commit a crime.

Mr O. G. Stevens, who appeared for the prisoner, said that the probation officer had referred to this particular offence as a border-line case. Counsel said he would ask his Honor to tip the scale in favour of the prisoner and grant him probation. Mr Stevens said that the prisoner was only 18 years of age, and so far as that court was concerned was a first offender. It was true that he had been in trouble in the Children’s Court, and that there were other charges against him yet to be dealt with in the Police Court. The charge in the Children’s Court had been stated by the probation officer to be not of a serious nature. The Crown Prosecutor said that the damage to the safe which the prisoner had tried to open was £ls. Mr. Stevens said that restitution of £4 had been made for the wages owing to his fellow-employees. "It is a great pity," his Honor said.

“ to see a boy coming from a good home disgracing himself and bringing disgrace upon his home in the Way you have done. It is not the first time you have been before a court. I have carefully considered your case, and particularly the long time that you devoted to the breaking of the safe, or attempting to break it, and I feel that the probation officer is quite right when he says that this is a border-line case.” His Honor said that he did not feel the same confidence that he often did when extending probation because of the circumstances, but he thought, notwithstanding, that in view of Ferguson’s age he should give him a chance to retrieve the disgrace he had brought upon himself and his home. His Honor added: “Let me tell you that, so far as I am concerned, I hope this leniency is not mistaken, but if a mistake has been made you may expect, if you again come here, that you will not be treated as I now propose to treat you.” His Honor placed the prisoner on probation for a term of two years, and ordered him to make restitution in the sum of £ls for damage to the safe. He was also ordered to pay £1 Is costs.