Badly Framed Charge

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31006, 11 March 1966, Page 3

Badly Framed Charge

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 10. Those responsible for framing serious criminal charges should see to it they were properly framed and he was not going to use his powers “to putty them up,” Mr Justice Hardie Boys said in the Supreme Court, Auckland, today. His Honour allowed an appeal against conviction and a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment by William David Alexander Rennie.

Rennie, a 20-year-old freezing worker, was sentenced in the Auckland Magistrate's Court for

“breaking and entering.*’ His Honour said he would put his reasons in writing because it was an important matter. He allowed the appeal on the ground that the information on which Rennie pleaded guilty did not disclose an offence punishable by law. Rennie was convicted in the Magistrate’s Court by Mr F. McCarthy, S.M., on January 19 and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment He appeared before Mr Justice Hardie Boys earlier this week appealing against the severity of his sentence.

Mr R. P. Martelll, for Rennie, said his Honour had raised the matter when the original information appeared to be defective. Rennie was charged with “breaking and entering a dwelling house” but the information did not mention the crucial words "with intent to commit a crime therein.” The judge pointed out that there was no crime known as breaking and entering. Mr Martelll said it appeared that the act did not give any power to amend the information.