AN UNJUST JUDGE.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1080, 31 August 1883, Page 2

AN UNJUST JUDGE.

The "Resident Magistrate at Wellington has lately placed himself in nn nn enviable position, through a decision which he gave in a case of larceny that came before him. It appears that lost week a young Frenchwoman, named Angeliqne Therese, was arrested on a charge of stealing a dolman from a shop window in Wellington, The evidence for the prosecution was that accused had been found with a dolman in her possession, and two witnesses swore to its identity. Fur the defence a witness

stated that she had seen accused wearing the dolman in Christchurch, and therefore she could not have stolen it in Wellington. Upon this evidence accused’s counsel, asked for an acquittal, but the magistrate refused, and said he intended to convict her. Up to this point Mr Hardcastle nmy perhaps liarc acted according to the weight of evidence, seeing that two witnesses swore that the article had been stolen, and only one that she , had seen accused wearing it before she came to Wellington. But one would have thought that even that positive statement would have been sufficient to have secured the remand asked for by accused’s counsel, who pleaded for limp to obtain further evidence of his client’s innocence. But the magistrate was deaf to all appeals, and harshly sentenced the girl to a month’s imprisonment with hard-labour. And it turns out that his severity was uncalled-for, and after all the girl’s witness was right ami those for the prosecution wrong. The case created. ; sotiie stir, and was brought under the notice of the Government, arid they communicated with the persons fro.nj,.wyhom accused said she bought • the dolman in Christchurch,, ami the answer .bore-out her statement. A pardon was accordingly granted by the Governor, and the unoffending 'girl released. It is to be hoped that some enquiry will he made into the administration of justice in. the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington. Here we have an innocent girl convicted and imprisoned, and caused no doubt to suffer great mental anguish from' the consciousness of her innocence—all of which might have, been avoided by a few hours’ remand till (ho telegraph had been set ; in motion to decide her guilt or otherwise. As an bon. member remarked in the House, the .other day, “ We do not live in Uussia,” and therefore such • high-handed dealing with doubtful cases like that of the girl Thereto should not he tolerated.