A SOLICITOR SENTENCED.

Kumara Times, Issue 516, 23 May 1878, Page 2

A SOLICITOR SENTENCED.

At the Manchester Assizes, before Lord Justice Brett, Edward'Stanley Bent, solicitor, was charged with feloniously receiving two portmanteaus con*, tabling wearing apparel, jewellery, and other articles, of the value of £lO, well knowing them to have been stolen.— The portmanteaus, one of which -belonged to Mr Pan.ell, M.P., had been ,-tolen ai the railway station by a man named Frankell, who was convict-d. Tho p'isoner defended him, and the stolen property was found at the solicitor's office. He admitted that he had received it for defending the prisoner, but said he did not know he was doing wrong—The jury found him guilty. J~ Lord Justice Brett, in passing sentence, *iid ; : You have becu convicted-of- a gross and felony/ and -you' are the man who has had every means of knowing . mi j judging what would-be the.result with you of such" a crime You are one of those men who must be trnsted in our protessiou, who are trusted and deeply trusted" in order to assist in the administration of justice. You have betrayed tbaf trust. You are oue of those who

Driug disgrace ononr profession. You are rapacious and grasping, taking everything that you can lay your hands upon from honest people, and, not jputent with that, taking everything that you can lay your hands upon from the wretched people whom you h ive to defend. No one has had the experience that I have had can fail to kuow. that such men as you not only assist the bad that plunder the honest, but that you positively strip naked tho->e who are given to you to defend, and you leave them and their families without a chance of retrieving, because you take everything they have. It is not a case of a man who is a receiver of stolen goods for the purpose of enticing thieves to commit theft, or for the.'purpose °f assisting thieved to do away with the produce of theft. These receivers are more dangerous than such a person as you, but they aie not more disgraceful, and not so much so. But Ido not consider it right to punish a person who not assist thieves so sevm-ely as I should punish one who does. You have committed this disgraceful, act in order to satisfy your own rapacity. If you had not been a member of the profession, and trusted as you have been, I should have sentenced you only to impi imminent. But becau.se you are a member of the profession and an attorney, I feel it my duty to send you to penal servitude. The sentence I pass upon you is that you be kept in penal servitude for five years.