MOTORIST’S PERJURY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 914, 6 March 1930, Page 20

MOTORIST’S PERJURY

YOUNG MAN FOUND GUILTY SEQUEL TO TRAGEDY Press Association MASTERTON, Today, A yerdict of guilty on a charge of perjury was returned against A. J. Buckley, motor-driver, now of Wellington, who appeared in the Supreme Court at Masterton yesterday. Mr. Justice Ostler presided. The charge arose out of a statement made by accused at the inquest concerning the death of Mrs. Emma Smith as the result of a motor accident at a street corner in Masterton last November. At the inquest accused stated that only three people, including himself, occupied the front seat of the car, and that one of the passengers was not sitting on a man's knee. Evidence was given today by several wit nesses that there were three passengers and the driver, Buckley, in the front seat, and that one of the passengers, a young woman, was sitting on a man’s knee. After two hours’ retirement the jury returned a verdict of guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy, on account of accused’s youth and his not realising the seriousness of the offence. This morning Buckley was sentenced to three months’ gaol on the charge of perjury. He pleaded guilty to obstructing the course of justice and was sentenced to three months concurrently with the sentence imposed in the perjury charge. TWO WOMEN GUILTY ADMITTED TO PROBATION Press Association MASTERTON, Today. At the Supreme Court this morning Mavis Jacobsen and Grace Christina Jacobsen, who pleaded guilty in the Lower Court to charges of perjury in connection with the motor fatality at Masterton in October last, the same as that in which Buckley was concerned, were admitted to probation for three months, on condition that they paid the costs of the prosecution and that the}' kept away from dance halls during their probation.