MAGISTRATES’ COURTS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1562, 20 February 1879, Page 2

MAGISTRATES’ COURTS.

CHRISTCHURCH. Thursday, February 20. [Before GK L. Hellish, Esq., R.M.] Prune and Disorderly.—A first offender wur fined ss.

Picking Pockets. —Samuel [Dobbinson, who was remanded on the 19th, was again brought up charged with stealing the sum o£ £1 2s 6d from the person of John Q-raham Lyde. Gfeorge Bonnet, a painter, being sworn said ho was in the City Hotel about midday on Monday, The prosecutor and the prisoner were both there, and the witness saw the latter put his hand in prosecutor’s pocket, and then take it out and extend it to another man, who grasped it, and then left the bar, John Graham Lyde, the prosecutor, stated that he was in the City Hotel list Monday. Ho was the worse for drink. He remembered having a £1 note and half a crown or a fiorin in hie possession when he was in the hotel. He afterwards missed the money from his pockets. Constable Joseph Nelson said he was called into the City Hotel on Tuesday afternoon. The prisoner, the prosecutor, and the two witness wore present, and the prosecutor charged the prisoner with [robbing him of a sura of money. He searched his pockets, and missed a£l note and some silver. The witness took the prisoner to the depot, and found a two shilling piece upon him. The witness Bennett being recalled, said he did not know the other man he had seen in the bar, and who had not come forward. The constable, in answer to the Bench, said the prosecutor and Bennett were both under the influence of liquor, but not to the extent of being unable to notice what was going forward. _ Th# prosecutor, in answer to the Bench, said he was sure he had his money when he went into (he hotel, but ho might not have had it in his possession '’when he laid down. It was just possible he might have lost it, but ho did not think so. The Bench was of opinion that the prisoner had been guilty of stealing the money, and sentenced him to one months’ imprisonment with hard labor. Disobeying an Order of the Court.Thomas King was summoned for disobeying a magistrate’s order for the payment of one pound weekly for the maintenance of his wife and four children. The defendant admitted that he was one month in arrear, and asked for another month to pay it in. He said his wife was willing, but his Worship said he was not, and sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment.