INCREASE IN CRIME

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19376, 14 July 1937, Page 15

INCREASE IN CRIME

MARLBOROUGH SESSIONS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM (Per Press Association.) BLENHEIM, this day. Addressing the Grand Jury at the opening of the Supreme Court sessions this morning, the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, alluded to the increased number of criminal charges. “I do not know that this should give you any especial cause for alarm, however,” he said, “for, after all, the volume of work is not more than might reasonably be expected from a district of this size.”

Five criminal charges were referred to the Grand Jury, one concerning alleged cattle stealing, one of alleged sheep stealing, two alleging carnal knowledge, and one of assault causing actual bodily harm. A true bill was returned in the case against a young man, Lewis John William Tuckerman, on two charges of carnal knowledge at Renwick.

The Grand Jury returned no bills against George Rutland Hart, of Canvastown, a farmer, on a charge of the theft of sheep, and against William Bell O’Callaghan, on a charge of an indecent offence against a male. The jury added a rider commending the police on the action taken in connection with the sheep-stealing allegation, realising that the matter was a serious one in pastoral districts. True bills were returned in the cases of Henry William Smith and Leslie Wilson, hotel employees, of Piclon, who were charged separately with assaulting Charles Herbert Broaden, hotel cook, of Pieton, ana also with assaulting Brogden and causing him actual bodily hat in. A true bill was also returned in the case against Leonard Alma Turner, farmer, of Tinline, Pelorous district, alleging the theft of cattle.