SUPREME COURT

Otago Witness, Issue 3384, 22 January 1919, Page 41

SUPREME COURT

NAPIER, January 14. The Supreme Court session opened to-day. His Honor Mr Justice Hosking, in addressing the Grand Jury, said that this was the first occasion in some four years that the court had not sat under the shadow of a great war. Unfortunately the horrors of war had been followed by the influenza epidemic, and this had been the cause of the postponement of the sitting, Fortunatelv the work to be submitted was small, and the calandar showed no sexual cases. W. A. Cleland was sentenced to two years' reformatory treatment for breaking and entering, to which he had pleaded guilty in the lower court. R. V. Martin was found guilty' of falsely registering a child as that of his wife when it belonged to another woman. The sentence will be promulgated to-morrow. January 15.

In the Supreme Court R. V. Martin was fined £lO, in default three weeks' imprisonment, for false registration of a birth. J. Sharp was found not guilty of theft from a Maori woman of jewellery. Norton Thompson, a Hastings solicitor, was charged with having received trust money and failing to account for the same. The accused defended himself, and the trial is proceeding. January 17.

In the Supreme Court Norton Thompson, solicitor, of Hastings, was sentenced by Mr Justice Hosking to four months' hard labour for theft of moneys entrusted to him by a client. . WELLINGTON, January 10.

In the Supreme Court to-day Thomas Perry, who pleaded guilty to stealing a diamond ring, valued at £l2O, was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment. The accused was a steward on the steamer Maori, and the ring was left in a lavatory by a passenger from Dunedin. For bigamy Mignonette Isobel Campbell was sent to reformative treatment for two years. Two youths, William Burnell and Robert Cecil Corry, escapees from the Weraroa training farm, were sentenced to three years' reformative detention.