MOVING COURT SCENE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9647, 23 January 1903, Page 4

MOVING COURT SCENE.

NOTED SOLICITOR SENT TO PRISON. LONDON, Dec. 12. Under painful curcumstances, and amid pathetic scenes, Robert Harding Mil ward, one of the best-known Birmingham solici, tare, was yesterday sent by the Lord Chief Justice into penal servitude for six years for extensive misappropriation, of trust funds. Of the counsel present nearly all were intimately acquainted with Mihvard, as well as n large number of solicitors hi court. There were a, number of ladkw present, and many old clients of Milward's. It was noticed that when, his lordship was stated the Clerk of Arraigns called om "Mr Milward," who at once stepped into the dock and was accommodated with a seat. In opening, Mr Lawrence, K.C., described the duty he liad to perform as a very painful one. Milward was a solicitor who had been known to almost all of them for many years, and one who had occupied a very excellent position, and been respected, counsel thought, by all. The case for the Crown, lasted under two hours, and then Mr Hugo Young, K.C., raised a number of legal technicalities on behalf of the defence, but called no witnesses. His lordship was against Mr Milward an points of law, and the jury found him guilty without leaving the box. It transpired that £84,000 of his liabilities were moneys entrusted to him. THE LAST APPEAL. It was a touching scene when, by permission of the judge, Milward made his final appeal. "I Ikivo nothing," he said, "at all to say as to the verdict m this ca.se; it would not be fitting for me to do so. 1 have to ask your lordship m passing sentence to bear this m mind. lam m my sixty-fifth year. My mother died at sixty-five, my brother at sixty-five, and another brother at sixty. "Consequently I have probably only a year or two to live. I have only just recovered from a, terrible attack of brain' fever and apoplexy caused by these unfortunate, events, and leaving me at the point of death. "I ask you to take into conisideration that any seutence which you may impose will probably result m my ending my life m gaol." Tlie judge then, with evident emotion, passed sentence. In doing so he remarked — "To me nothing gives me greater pain than to have t6 sentence a man. m your position, and more so because I believe you have been respected by your neighbors, and m years gone by I was connected with you professionally, and had a great regard for you." After this the man, wlio had figured so prominently m Birmingham life, left the dock with faltering footsteps and quivering lips.