SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2131, 5 March 1870, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SITTING. This Day. (Before Mr Justice Ward.) SENTENCE. Henry Charles Richards, convicted yesterday of forgery, was brought up for sentence. Mr Barton remarked that owing to the prisoner having resided in Lawrence, he was not in a position to call many witnesses to speak to his character. He instanced the fact that when committed persons of respectability were willing to have come forward as bail for the prisoner, if it had been allowed; and he had the permission of Dr Halley, one of the prosecutors to state that he would have been willing to have come forward in a similar capacity, had he been required to do so. He called Michael Murphy, who stated that he had known the prisoner fifteen years, and up to the time of the commission of this offence, he had heard nothing against his character. His Honor addressing the prisoner said ; —You have been convicted on evidence which could leave no doubt of your guilt in the minds of those who heard it. lam sorry to say that that guilt is aggravated by the circumstances under which the crime was committed. Ido not mean to dwell upon the fact that you have been acting as an unlicensed practitioner of the law, save for one purpose —that you assumed to yourself the character of legal and confidential adviser to the person you have endeavored to defraud. When a solicitor or lawyer abuses the confidence of his client, or takes advantage of his position to commit such a crime as you have committed, his position is invariably regarded as an aggravation of his offence. I shall take into consideration that you not only committed forgery, but that you absolutely swore to the effect that you saw the testator sign the document, thus adding the crime of perjury to that of forgery. The sentence which the law allows to lie passed on crimes such as yours is that of fourteen years’ penal servitude. I need not say that Ido not intend to pass such a sentence ; but I do not think I should be justified, under the circumstances, in passing a lighter sentence than that you be confined in the gaol at Dunedin foi- the term of three years. <• ASSAULT WITH INTENT. George Haggerty was again placed in the dock,-Charged with the above offence. Mr Barton defended. At the previous trial, a few days ago, 'we reported the case pretty fully, so that the facts must be fresh in the recollection of .our readers. The girl to-day underwent a severe at the hands of Mr Barton, and her evidence was materially shaken. .