SUPREME COURT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1789, 7 November 1919, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SESSIONS. The trial of Charles Kobert Bignell, on charges of having supplied, and having attempted to supply noxious pills to Ellen Hale, for the purpose of procuring abortion, was continued in the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon before his Honour Mr Justice Herdman. Mr A. T. Donnelly appeared as Crown Prosecutor, and Mr O. T. J. Alpers represented the prisoner. The jury retired at 4.5 p.m. and returned at 8.5. The foreman said that the jury had agreed on a verdict of guilty, with a unanimous recommendation to the utmost mercy. > This morning, after Mr. Alpers had made a plea for leniency on behalf of prisoner, his Honour sentenced Bignell to 18 months' hard labour. A CYCLE THIEF.

I Frederick Alexander Jackson, who pleaded guilty in the Lower Court to a charge of having attempted to steal a motor cycle and side-chair from Hagley Park on October 18, was brought up for sentence this morning. His Honour sentenced prisoner to 12 months' imprisonment. CHAEGES AGAINST CHINESE. Ah" Chung, a gardener, was charged with carnal knowledge of, and indecent assault upon, a girl under the age of 16 years. Mr A. T. Donnelly represented the Crown Prosecutor (Mr S. G. Baymond, K.C.), and Mr A. C. Hanlon (Dunedin), with him Mr J. A. Cassidy, appeared for accused. Evidence was given by the girl as to the circumstances of the alleged offence, but the medical evidence and opinion tendered served to discount the case for the Crown. Without retiring the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty and Ah Chung was discharged. WELLINGTON SESSIONS. Press Association. WELLINGTON, November 6. At the Supreme Court, Patrick Murphy, charged with committing an indecent assault on a boy, was acquitted. Thomas Farrow, charged with committing bigamy, having been married in England in 1914 and in WolEngton last year, was sentenced to two years' hard labour. At the request of prisoner's counsel, who raised a point as to whether the Crown was bound to proveaffirmatively that the "first wife was alive when the second marriage took place, Judge Chapman agreed to state a case for the Court of Appeal. DUNEDIN^SESSIONS. Press Association. DUNEDIN, November 6. In the Supreme Court, William Gerald Manning was convicted on a charge of falsifying accounts as the servant of John Watson, Port Chalmers. The jury made' a strong recommendation to mercy on account of the lax manner in which the employer .allowed the business to be conducted. Manning subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of receiving £lB 10/6 in various sums and fraudulently omitting to account for and pay these sums to Watson. Accused was remanded for sentence. November 7. At the Supreme Court, John Bennett, who pleaded guilty to stealing £22 from a fellow-fireman on the steamer Westmoreland, was ordered to be detained for reformative treatment for a period not exceeding three years.