SUPREME COURT

Southland Times, Issue 17653, 10 February 1916, Page 6

SUPREME COURT

WELLINGTON. United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, February 5. At the Supreme Court to-day Mr Justice Chapman sentenced Thomas Langlois, a Frenchman, to seven years’, and Caesar Wanters, a Belgian, to six years’ imprisonment, both for indecently assaulting males. In the cases of Albert James Adams and Robert Ralph Carr, seamen, charged with theft from the Corinthic, in which the jury found that the robbery was committed while the accused were in a state of temporary insanity, the Judge ordered the prisoners to be detained in custody, and said that he would state a case for the Court of Appeal to decide the meaning of the verdict, DUNEDIN, DUNEDIN, February 9. The criminal sittings concluded this morning, when the following sentences were passed on prisoners whose cases had been dealt with during the week Claude Osmond Barkle, for theft and false pretences, six months’ imprisonment on each of two charges, and to be detained thereafter for five years’ reformative treatment. Christian Christensen, for reviving stolen property, was ordered to pay a fine of £SO, in default six months’ imprisonment. David Cameron, for theft of hides, eighteen months’ imprisonment, to commence at the expiration of prisoner's present sentence. TIMARU. THE MANSLAUGHTER CASE. TIMARU, February 9. The Supreme Court was occupied all day on a charge of manslaughter against James William Grant, runholder, Mackenzie Country, of causing the death of Hector W. P. Cox, machinery agent, by the negligent driving of a motor car causing a collision with a motor cycle ridden by the deceased. The evidence for the prosecution indicated that two cars were travelling along a dusty road at excessive speed, the accused being in the second car, and in the dust' raised by the first, and that he turned off on the middle of the road to the right-hand side and almost immediately ran into the cyclist. Accused claimed that his speed was usual on that road and not unreasonable, that he was on the middle of the road and did not turn off till after the eollision, and that the swerve capsized the car. He did not see the cyclist, for just before meeting him a puff of wind raised a cloud of dust and hid all in front. The jury was out for the full four hours, and just at the limit of their time agreed on a verdict of not guilty. It is understood that Grant has made provision for the widow and family.