GAOL FOR PERJURY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23972, 12 June 1943, Page 7

GAOL FOR PERJURY

PRISONERS SENTENCED "This is about as bad a piece of deliberate perjury as has come to the notice of the Court for some time," said Mr Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court, in Christchurch yesterday when sentencing Clifford Fox. a labourer, to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour. In the dock with him was Harold George Carter, who. with Fox, had pleaded not guilty in the Lower Court to this offence, in the Supreme Court, however, both changed their pleas to guilty Neither had anything to say before sentence was pronounced. Carter, who was in military uniform, received six months’ imprisonment with hard labour. His Honour said he took a serious view of this offence. "You both knew the gravity of the offence you were committing," he commented. The object of both young men (who are serving sentences on other charges) had been to secure the acquittal of Fox on a theft charge before Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., on January 14. and in that they had succeeded. With deliberation they had concocted a story to establish a false alibi for Fox. „ , The Judge directed that Fox should serve a year in gaol in excess of present sentences. He took a somewhat more lenient view in the case against Carter, he said, as the latter had been led into the offence by Fox. A sentence of six months imprisonment with hard labour was Imposed on Alexander William Charlett, aged 21, labourer, who also appeared in uniform, for attempted breaking and entering at Christchurch. "It is hard to know what to do with you.” said his Honour when commenting on the prisoner’s past offences. Charlett. he said, had been released from a Borstal institution in order to enter the Army, and had attempted to commit the offence to which he pleaded guilty while on leave. "Though you did not succeed in your object,” said his Honour, "the way In which you went about it and the manner in which you equipped yourself for that purpose suggested what you had in mind quite rlenrly.” -