AN ABSCONDER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20103, 9 May 1935, Page 8

AN ABSCONDER

EXTRADITION OPPOSED By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, May 8. On about their twentieth appearance in Court in Wellington since they arrived from Australia and the first attempts were made to extradite them several months ago. William Campbell and Madge Munro faced Mr J. H. Luxford in the Magistrate’s Court to-day and heard once more the familiar charge of stealing in Sydney share scrip worth £375. For the first time the circumstances of the alleged theft were detailed from information brought by a Sydney detective. From the detective’s files, counsel for the police outlined the story of the methods by which the two accused had allegedly stolen the scrip. It had been done, he said, by means of a trick. Madge Munro had twice absconded on bail from the Sydney police on the second occasion in company with Campbell to New Zealand. In Sydney she had escaped a charge of conspiracy to defraud by producing a marriage certificate and maintaining that a wife could not conspire with her husband. The case has still apparently some distance to go before a decision on even the question of extradition is reached, as to-day counsel for accused advanced several more legal objections. Among them was an allegation that in the preparation of the depositions brought from Sydney as evidence, a fundamental rule of justice had been ignored in that counsel for accused had not been allowed to cross-examine the deponents. Mr Luxford promised to look into the objections. The hearing will be continued on Saturday.