SUPREME COURT.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 47, 17 February 1894, Page 9

SUPREME COURT.

The February sittings of the Court were opened before His Honour Mr Justice Williams on Tuesday. The Grand Jury found true bills in all the cases on the calendar. Four of the accused pleaded guilty, and were dealt with as follows :

Alex. Copland, forgery, got 18 months’ imprisonment ; and Dibb Ido (an Assyrian hawker) and Chas. Sutton, forgery, six and twelve mouths respectively. Duncan Stewart, who had stabbed W. Collie, hotelkeeper, was admitted to probation on condition that he abstained from intoxicating drink for a year. Joseph Ililder Forsyth, of Kinloch, Queenstown, aged SG, denied a charge of criminally assaulting his own daughter, but was found guilty after evidence had been taken, and sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude. Frederick Stevens pleaded not guilty to a charge of stealing a horse from Avenal, the property of James Tait. He was found guilty and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, an application to have him admitted to probation being refused, His Honour holding that it would be wrong to grant it in a ease where the accused had made a statement on his oath that the jury, by their verdict, had declared to be untrue. Had he pleaded guilty, or simply held his tongue, the application might have been considered. John O’Donnell, charged with assaulting C. Gardiner, Waikiwi, was fined £5 and bound over to keep the peace. John Pun ton Weir was then arraigned on a charge of having criminally assaulted a girl at Thornbury. Mr Macalister appeared for the defence.

The case for the defence was reached shortly after 3 p.m. yesterday. There were five or six witnesses to examine, and the case was proceeding when we went to press.