SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 3008, 9 October 1872, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SESSIONS,

This Day. (Before Mr Justice Chapman.) SENTENCES. Thomas Borland (40), who was yesterday | found guilty of a common assault, w r as 'brought up for sentence. iNir E Cook, who ! appeared for him, called j Rev. Dr Stuart, who said ; I have known | Borland for a number of ycais, and have i looked upon him as an easy, good-tempered man-one who would not be ipiarrelso.no. I cannot say very much about him being a j thoroughly steady man, but from my own knowledge know him to be fond of his i family, and apparently anxious to make i them happy and comfortable. Perhaps I j may be allowed to say that Mrs Borland, i from the day of the accident apd afterwards, I repeatedly told me that the fracture of her I leg was the result of a fall. His Honor : That is done with now; the i jury have negatived the Let that it was j otherwise. (Addressing the prisoner.) Thomas I Borland, the jury, very fortunately for you, have evidently by their verdict, negatived that part of the evidence, which would have aggravated the punishment, and have found l you guilty of common assault. There is | always a difficulty in dealing wjth a case of j this sort, and under the circumstancf s I am disposed to pass a lenient sentence that will j meet the justic ; of the ease, aud be a warn- | ing to you in the future. You have evidently ! borne a good character ; those who have employed you from time to time —three I persons—have given evidence to that effect, to which is now added that of the Bev. Dr Stuart, and you will have the advantage of that. There is another circumstance that I enmot help taking into consideration, and it is that the punishment in all these cases falls partly upon the family. In your case there is this evidence, given by the police sergeant, that since your wife was removed from the house, the children appeared to be kept in a cleaner and tidier condition, showing that the effect, so far as your influence was concerned, Las t> en beneficial upon the family. I also take into consideration the great provocation -no doubt it was great; at the same lime, the law must be vindicated, because no person has a right, to use a common expression, to take the law into his own hands. I shall pass upon you a lenient sentence, and I shall also require you to give security to keep the peace. The sentence is, that you be imprisoned for three months ; but before your liberation you will have to enter into your own recognisance in the sum of LIOO to keep the peace for twelve months towards all her Majesty’s subjects. Richard Chapman Evatt (23), who pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a cheque for L2OO, the property of his employers, Messrs Murray, Roberts, and Co., was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

plummer's trial. Fvedetick Plummer was indicted for having I at Dunedin, on August 8, been illegally I at large, he being at the time a prisoner of I the Crown. The pri oner, who was undefended, obtained the removal of all witnesses from Court, and cross examined each, taking down their answers iu a book. The Crown Prosecutor, in opening his case, suid the indictment was brought under the Prisoners Act, ■which allowed of the production of certificates of a prisoner’s sentence as sufficient evidence of such sentence. The necessity of proof of the signature and official character of the person signing the certificate was dispensed with by the Official Documents Act. The simple duty of the Crown was to show that the prisoner was at large at a time when his sentences were unexpired. The certificates of the Registrar of the Supremo Court at Auckland showed that on March 10, 1867, th« prisoner was convicted of two separate charges of burglary, receiving four years’ penal servitude on each, the sentences being cumulative. In .September, 1869, he was convicted of escaping from the Auckland gaol, for which offence he received a sentence of two years’ penal servitude, to be accumulative upon the former sentences ; and for a robbery on a ship in a liver while illegally at large, he received a further sentence of four years, also accumulative, making 14 years iu all, so that his imprisonment would not expire till 1881. The witnesses examined were—L. Walker, warder in the Auckland Gaol, who identified the prisoner ; Mr Governor Caldwell, Sergeant Ferguson, Detective Farrell, Constable 13ain. The prisoner, addressing the jury, said the charge was utterly groundless and fal-

lacious. He did not dispute anything that had been said by the Governor of the Gaol, the warder from the Auckland Gaol, or by the warders of the Dunedin Gaol. All that they said was perfectly true. The charge against him was that he had been illegally at large, “against the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, her Crown, and digiuty.” The Drst thing to be proved was, that he had escaped from legal custody. Did it foil w that because he did not return to the Gaol on the afternoon of August S, with the other prisoners, that he had necessarily escaped from legal custody. That afternoon, when at Hillside, he obtained leave to go to the water-closet, and went to the nearest one, but some one being there, and the case being a pressing one, he went to another water-closet, and stopped tl-.erc about ten minutes. .Sergeant Ferguson missed him almost immediately afterwards, and. being under the impress ; on, he supposed, that he (Plummer) bad run away, walked off the other prisoners earlier than usual, and the consequence was that he (Plummer) was left an unprotected prisoner of the Crown. It was the warders, and not lie, who had run away ; and because they did so was he to be held responsible for running away, which he did not do ? Tne blunder was on the part of the warders who bad charge of him, and was he to be held responsible for it? Would the jury allow a blot to rest on the escutcheon of the British Crown by saying that a prisoner of the Crown was to be held responsible for tb ; blunders of those in charge of him ? The jury, without leaving the box, returned a verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, the sentence to be accumulative. Frederick Plummer was m'xt indicted for stealing a number of purses, the property of E. Nathan, tobacconist, Princes street

The prisoner made a long, rambling statement in defence. He said that on the evening he was captured he went into a publichouse —he did not know in what street—and afterwards went out int< ruling to see the Japanese at the Theatre, but seeing a warder at the Theatre doer, retired. He then went into a public-house in some street off Princes street, and there had a glass of whisky. Hearing some voices in a ro nr, he went in and found some men gambling. One of the men, mad at losing, offered to play him (Plummer) euchre, and he did so, winning eight or nine shillings from him. The man, further maddened by his losses, offered to play for his last sixpence, which he (Plummer) refused. The man went away, and returned with a hawker’s pack, and displaying its contents, invited him to play for anything in it He at tirat dec iaed, but ultimately played, and won a looking-glass, knife, and two purses, which he set against four other purses and won them. lie promised the man to return and continue the play ; but as the jury knew, he did not get the chauco. That was a plain, straightforward statement. Of course the jury might ask him who tire man was, who played with him. He could not tell them. They must remember he had never been in Dunedin before, and knew no one in the place except the Gaol officials and Mr and Mrs Hudson. If ho had been a resident in the place the charge would not have been brought against him, for he would have known the man, the persons present, or the hotel in which the occurrence took place. But six weeks had elapsed since the occurrence, and the charge being brought against him ; and of course he could not remember .at that distance of time what had happened. Besides, what motive had he for stealing the galtry purses ? If his liberty or his life depended on being able to point out from whom be obtained the purses, he could not do so Of Ihe robbery he was as ignorant as the sileht dead or the upborn babe. Hp bad nothing more to say. The man from whom lie got the purses must have been a hawker ; his name he coold not tell ; but he remembered he had sandy whiskeie, and was about thirty' years of ate. His Honor, in charging the jury, said the prisoner’s story was the same as that invariably told in like cases : the stolen articles were got from a man unknown. Prisoner attempted to urge absence of motive. If the purses were worth gambling for, they were worth stealing. The jury, after over an hour’s retirement, returned a verdict of guilty. The prisoner was also found guilty of stealing some articles of wearing apparel from the Dunedin Cricket Ground, and pleaded guilty to tKe oth-r three charges preferred against him. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on each, making two and a half years ; the sentences to be cumulative.