The Slattery Case.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7859, 29 June 1905, Page 3

The Slattery Case.

* CONVICTION QUASHED. (Received June 28, 9.48 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 28. I The appeal against the Full Court 3 confirmation of T. M. Slattery s conviction resulted in the High Court auashing the sentence and ordering the release of Slattery. The grounds of the appeal were that the fun Court was in error in holding that applicant was bailee and had committed larceny of any property belonging to Mrs Scanlon in any converted form within tlie meaning of section ' 135 of the Crimes Act. The Chief Justice, in delivering judgment, said the question involved ' was, was there an original bailment relationship between Mrs Scanlon and prisoner, that of principal and agent, or debtor and creditor, and not bailor and bailee ? That was at Common Law and the Crimes Act did not affect the case in any way. Bearing in mind that at Common law a person guilty of fraudulent mis- ! representation of money was not guilty of crime, it only being made a crime by statute, they had to deal with the proposition that fraudulent I misappropriation was. a criminal of-; fence. Nobody could have any sympathy with fraudulent misappropriation. It might be there was a gap in the New South Wales law. If there were it was for the Legislate, not for the Court, to fill up. bThe contention was that a finan■try agent who misappropriated Kney could be dealt with for larKy. There was no such law on Ui« Hatute Book. For these reasons .he Bought the case did not fall within ■ction X2S, therefore the conviction' Bust be quashed.