HOKITIKA SUPREME COURT TRIALS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 556, 18 September 1869, Page 2

HOKITIKA SUPREME COURT TRIALS.

GEOBGE "WINTEB CONYICTED. George "Winter, the late CountyTreasurer, pleaded guilty to the pmbezzlement of £1047 17s. After Mr South had addressed the Court on his behalf, the prisoner, who stated that he was in his fifty-fifth year, said he had nothing to urge why sentence should not be passed upon him. His Honor, addressing the prisoner, said—Tours is a case, one of a class, in which no Judge can proceed to pass sentence without a feeling of acute pain. It is pain, however, which is, in your instance, to some degree tempered by indignation. You stand there self-convicted of having abused the highest pecuniary trust in the place. Tou have brought shame not only upon yourself and yours, but upon the official class to which you have belonged ; upon the social circle iu which you moved. Not only this, but you have shaken that confidence which should exist between governed and those that govern; you have shaken public confidence ; you have cast suspicion on social respectability ; you stand there a great social scandal. I feel totally unable to yield to those pleas that have been urged in your favor, and I feel bound by my sentence to mark my sense of the gravity of the offence. However, while the fact of your position, your education, adds to your crime, there is no doubt that because of that position, that education, the punishment that it will be the duty of the Court to inflict will fall upon you with terrible weight. Your habits, inclinations, and tastes will make the discipline of a gaol doubly irksome to you, and your mind will be racked, so that the sentence, which you must feel to be severe, will be light compared with that. Without further comment I pass the sentence of the court upon you, which is that you be kept in penal servitude for the space of three years.

E. W. JONES ACQUITTED. In the ease of E. W. Jones, late Curator of Intestate Estates, the Judge said that the evidence had disclosed a disgraceful mass of confusion of accounts, but he was glad to see that that evidence also showed the probability that there had been no iutent to defraud, and it was not such evidence as the Crowu could ask for a conviction upon. The officer had undoubtedly, against the statute, helped himself to particular accounts, but upon the whole account it has not been proved that he was short. Aud if he was short the case would not be affected so long as the defendaut had a plausible or colorable claim. He therefore directed the jury to acquit the defendant. The jury, in accordance with this direction, returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and a similar verdict was given on two other indictments. His Honor, in discharging the defendant, said he had great satisfaction in doing so. He would make no comment on the manner in which the accounts were kept further than that they were discreditable to himself and the Government. Decided malversation there had been, but he was happy to say that he believed in the probability that this was not done with criminal intent. Alexander Johnson, who pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

UNNATURAL OFFENCE. The Crown Prosecutor referred to the case against J. L. Barke, Greymouth, charged with having committed an unnatural offence. He said that having carefully perused the depositions, he had come to the conclusion that the evidence was not such as would justify his asking a jury to convict upon. He would therefore prefer to withdraw the indictment. The Judge stated that he also had read the depositions, and had just seen a copy of au exhibit attached. He saw there was no chance of a petty jury conviction upon such evidence, and concurred with the course proposed to be pursued. The prisoner was arraigned, when the Judge told him the decision arrived at by the Crown Prosecutor, a decision with which he (the Judge) concurred. The evidence was such that no reliance could he placed upon it.

The prisoner was accordingly discharged.