SUPREME COURT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17919, 25 October 1932, Page 8

SUPREME COURT

AUCKLAND SESSIONS TWO MURDER CHARGES (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Twenty-four cases, involving 27 prisoners, are for trial at the criminal session of the Supreme Court which opened to-day. There are two charges of murder, one against a half-caste Maori hoy, Hcta Fred Gardner, a re-trial, and the other against George Frederick Hewer, described as a doctor.

(Mr. Justice Smith, in his charge to the grand jury, referred to the" Hewer case as very peculiar indeed. He said the charge of murder was in respect of an infant child, the same child concerning which a charge of procuring abortion was made against the same, prisoner. The law laid it down that the killing of such a child was homicide if the infant died of injuries received before, during, or after birth. Tu this case, the evidence showed that after the birth of the child it received the most complete attention and care, the accused having directed that it he sent to St. Helen’s Hospital. To obtain a conviction it would he necessary to show that the accused committed an unlawful act with intent that the child, if born alive, should die.

TALMERSTOM SESSION (Per PrfiSß Association.) PALMERSTON N., this day. The quarterly session of the Supremo Court opened to-day. Mr. Justice Blair, in his charge to the grand jury, said the district was to he congratulated on its freedom from crime involving violence or dishonesty. His Honor added that the. only case for trial arose out of the driving of a motor ear, , being a charge against a youth of reckless or negligent driving thereby causing death. The grand jury returned no bill in the charge against William Edward Barlow, 13. of reckless and negligently driving a motor ear, thereby causing death.