CONVICTION AGAINST A BOY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 28, 28 December 1917, Page 7

CONVICTION AGAINST A BOY.

UPSET ON A RE-HEARING. CONSTABLE’S KEENNESS CONDEMNED. An Otahuhu boy, 15, years of age, was arrested by Constable Wade on October 26 and tried before Mr F. V. Frazer, S.M., on October 29, and was convicted on three charges of theft of money from the office of Andrew and Andrew,! stable proprietors. When the case was heard on October 29 the boy was ordered to be committed to the Burnham Industrial School Against the decision Mr Hall Skelton, solicitor for accused, appealed, but it was found that, owing to a defect of the Act, no appeal lay. Counsel then applied for a re-hearing, which was granted. The re-hearing was aeard before Mr IV. Wilson, S.M. At the original hearing the boy was eounvicted principal}’ on. the evidence of Andrew and Andrew’s bookkeeper, Joseph Hunter, and the evidence of Constable Wade, who had obtained a. confession from the boy. The defence was that the books showed that certain moneys were missing, but that the till contained far more moneys titan the cash book accounted for, particularly about the time when the alleged thefts took place, and that the books bad recently been altovecl and certain erasures made. The defence sot up, further, that 1 lie confession of the boy was obtained after some hours of threatening and bullying and inducements which caused the boy to give false confession of guiU, believing that the matter would drop if he signed the same. After hearing evidence of a protracted nature, the magistrate, in giving judgment, said he was ■'.atn-licd that the books had been altered just before the second hearing, and that the bookkeeper had made many statements which were obviously incorrect. No doubt he bad clone this suffering from funk, and to clear himself. The boy alleged that the constable haci written out the confession, not from questions put, but for the most part from information given the constable from other persons, and that he signed it only when the constable held out the inducement that there would he no more heard of it. The hoy had been skilfully cross-examined for some hours over a maze of facts, without the slightest variation, showing a marvellous memory faculty. He •believed the constable exceeded his powers owing to a keenness to get a conviction. The constable’s own statements supported the boy’s statement, which he believed, and dismissed the three informations.