SUPREME COURT.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 August 1921, Page 1

SUPREME COURT.

[by TELEGRAPH —PER PRESS ASSOCIATION] SUPREME COURT. CHRISTCHURCH, August 3. i At the Supreme Court tho charge i against Julia Fitzgerald, postmistress of having opened a post card at Blackball wa« not concluded when the Court rose. PHOTO OP £5 NOTE. WELLINGTON, Aug. 3. The Supreme Court was crowded today when John Swinson, a well- | known advertising agent was charged jin that lie did have in his possession , h glass plate with a photographic ne- , gative, containing figures and cbarnc- [ tors resembling a £5 Bank of New ' Zealand note. Mr Macassoy. Crown Prosecutor, ! said there was no suggestion whatever lof an intent to commit a crime. The note had been photographed merely for ( the purposes of a guessing competition , regarding the names of the New Zealand team to meet the Springboks in the first test match, j Air Martin Luclrie representing the accused in applying for a ruling of the I Court that there ivas no case for a jury, said the Lower Court proceedings had been reported in the press of the Dominion as a ease of possessing means of counterfeiting and that the 'accused had admitted the offence. . “That sort - of thing is likely to injure my clients busindps throughout the Dominion.” His Honour: —“lt is very unfortunate.” ; After a lengthy argument concerning the definition of “without lawful excuse.” His Honour said he would ex- , ereise the discretion allowed the Court : by the Probation Act of 1920, and 1 would discharge the accused without sending the cose to a jury. The discharge, added His Honour would nave . the fiiH force of an acquittal. i QUESTION OF PROBATION. | AUCKLAND, August 3. Several prisoners appeared at tho Supreme Court for sentence before ! Justice Adams. In granting probation to a forger, j His Honour took occasion to express j his views on the meaning of probaItion, and also, in another ease, to rejfer incidentally to the Court of Appeal’s [recent decisions in regard to the “standard of punishment.” Tho Court of Appeal, said His Honour, “did not in fact lay down any neAv principle. The application of the principle has been in practice for 20 years.” “Probation”, said His Honour, at * later stage, “is not a license to do wrong, nor is it vtery desirable to differentiate it from punishment in actual fact. Tt is itself, in my judgment, a somewhat serious punishment. A prisoned put on probation must understand that he must he exceedingly careful to comply implicitly with the directions of the probation officer and with the conditions laid alowi) in the 1920 Act.”