PLEA OF NOT GUILTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27039, 25 March 1949, Page 7

PLEA OF NOT GUILTY

ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE ALLEGED PA WELLINGTON, Mar. 24. Pleas of not guilty were entered by both the accused. Raymond France Belgium Anzac Sykes, aged 31, a ship's fireman, and William Edward Ryan. 39, a seaman, at the conclusion of the hearing of the police evidence against them in the Magistrate's Court to-day, and both were committed by Mr A. M. Goulding. S.M., to the Supreme Court for trial. Sykes was charged with robbing Clarence Patrick Lynch of £lB by using persona! violence in a house in Vivian street on February 24 and Ryan was charged with being an accessory after the fact. Pleading for the dismissal of the case against Ryan. Mr W. V. Gazley. who appeared for both men. said that only Henry Alfred Tamm, owner of the house, had given evidence of positive action on Ryan's part. Tamm, however, had not been able to say whether Ryan's interference had been the means to facilitate Sykes’s escape. Rejecting Mr Gazley's application. Mr Goulding said the question of Ryan's part in the alleged offence was one for a jury to decide. Bail was granted to Ryan, but in Sykes’s case it was refused. Sub-inspector E. M. Thomas prosecuted for the police.