CONNELL'S CRIMES.

NZ Truth, Issue 75, 24 November 1906, Page 5

CONNELL'S CRIMES.

FORGED HIS FATHER'S NAME.

Hoped to Dance on His Grave.

Dirty Degenerate Sent to Gaol.

Six charges of forgery and uttering to which he pleaded guilty, and a charge of a beastly nature committed on a small bo 1 to which he pleaded not guilty, but which a jury lost no time m convicting him of, was the little lot than an out and out scoundrel named John Connell, a* young man, had to answer to at the Criminal Court on Monday last and for whioh he got less than he honestly deserved, from the, Chief Justice, on Wednesday, and that too after he had previously doubted whether he should not treat him as an habitual criminal.

Prom his criminal record, it seems that Council's favorite crime is writin? the signatures of other people on cheques -and orders, and for offences of that nature he had served terms of four years' and one year's imprisonment. Evidently he had not long been out of gaol when he started m again, and he certainly had a good innings at the expense of his aged and respected- father, who is a light-house keeper uip North. In September last the prisoner started to operate on the old man's banking account. The' father banked at the Bank of New 'Zealand, Auckland ; and Johnny drew on it from Wellington. He simply signed cheques m the name of Alexander Conjiell, and the Bank .of New Zealand havin*- ascertained that a person of that name had an account at the Auckland branch, duly honored them. It was a clumsy piece of business on the local bank's part, and the scoundrelly son had a good time of it. It was while having this good time that the dirty wretch picked up with a youngster late at night and committed a most unusual offence upon him. He was duly hauled m on the forgery charge, and while under committal -for trial he was identified by the boy as being the man who had indecently assaulted him. Furthermore, it might be stated that because of the son's operations on the father's banking account, the old man's signature had been declared void by the bank, when he had presented his own cheque, which only shows how grossly careless the banking people had been m the matter.

When the prisoner came up for sentence last Thursday he was asked if he had anything to say, and he .worked off an ancient gag, that he had suffered from the effects of sunstroke and that it had led him on to the road to ruin. The sunstroke {rag had been worked ofi once before that momin- by another forger, and the Chief Justice was sceptical, even when Crown Prosecutor Myers asserted that Connell's father had sent a message to say that his erring son had once had a sunstroke. Another nail was driven into Connell's coffin when a letter sent by him to his father was handed to the Judge. This letter, which the Judge said he would not read out, was pronounced by him as being a disgraceful letter from a son to a father. (It's purport was that he was looking forward with pleasure, to the time when he should dance on his. grave.) That letter showed that the prisoner had forged his father's name out of revenge. Referring to Connell's previous convictions for forgery the Judge said he could not overlook them. He could understand the effect of sunstroke m loosening the control of a man over himself, but it seemed that m the prisoner's case, he preferred drinking and loitering about hotels to earning an honest livelihood. Then the offence against the boy did not look like the effect of sunstroke. For that offence he was liable to life imprisonment, m fact for the offenoes committed by the prisoner he was entitled to more than life imprisonment, if that were possible. The hope of reforming such a man by leniency was impossible. On the charges of foreery he sentenced Connell to three years' imprisonment and for the offence on the boy he imposed an additional 18 months, sentences to be cumulative.