SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25238, 29 May 1943, Page 3

SUPREME COURT

ACQUITTANCE ROLL CASE A verdict of guilty on all counts was returned by the jury in the Supreme Court yesterday in the case in which Claude Alexander Buchanan, a civil service clerk, •faced two charges of forgery and three charges of theft. It was alleged by the Crown that the accused signed receipts for payment for attendance at'army medical boards in false names, and committed the theft of £4 10s in connection 1 with the forgeries. The accused pleaded not guilty. 1 ' The evidence and cross-examination of Lieutenant R. J. Collins, a handwriting expert, occupied the greater part of the day. No evidence was called for .the defence. In his address to the jury, Mr E. J. Anderson, who appeared for the accused, said that the focal point of the Crown's case was the evidence of Lieutenant Collins, who was an army officer in a case brought by the Army Department. He was -not an independent witness, and he was giving evidence on handwriting, which was not, and never would be, an exact science. He was an “ uncrowned king ” in the realm of handwriting, and if the jury convicted the accused it would do so on his evidence alone. , . The jury retired at 5.59 and returned at 7.47 with a verdict of guilty on all counts. Mr Justice Kennedy remanded the prisoner in custody for sentence until 10 o’clock on Friday morning next or until the end of the session.