CRIMINAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 844, 26 May 1910, Page 3

CRIMINAL.

PALMERSTON SESSION OF THE SUPREME COURT.

The Supreme Comt continued in Palmerston on Tuesday before Mr Justice Cooper. The charge against Archibald Muir of theft of 37 cheques from the National Mortgage and Agency Company was continued all day on Tuesday, while the whole of the evidence for the Crown was taken. No evidence for the defence was called, and Mr C. A. Loughnan, Crown Prosecutor, addressed the jury before lunch. When the Court resumed Mr H. R. Cooper addressed the jury on behalf of accused. His Honour then summed up and the jury retired for an hour, and then reported that they could not agree. Another new trial was ordered.

In the case against William Worthington, charged with false pretences, the indictment showed that the prisoner was accused of having by false pretences on February 28, 1910, at Dannevirke, represented to Annie Brown that he had received a position in the Crown Lands Surveyor’s office in Napier, with a salary of ,£BOO per year, and thereby secured ,£ls ; further, in Wellington on March 7, 1910, that he stole two rings from Annie Brown. Prisoner conducted his own case.

In addressing the jury accused denied having said that he expected a position in the Lands Survey office in Napier. What he bad said in an exchange ol confidence was that owing to illhealth he had been compelled to relinquish a position of consulting engineer to a large railway firm, which position brought him ,£6OO to per year. After a retirement of twenty minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the charge of theft of rings, and not guilty on the charge of false pretences.

It was shown that the accused was suffering from consumption in a very advanced stage, but his Honour said he had no jurisdiction to commit the prisoner to a consumptive sanatorium, although that was certainly where he ought to be. He thought it best tor the prisouer’s welfare that he be committed to the Napier gaol for ten days, without hard labour, the sentence to commence from last Monday. His Honour would at once recommend that he be admitted to an institution lor consumptive patients. This would provide the means of providing tor the prisoner until admission to an institution was secured.