SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 386, 11 May 1910, Page 8

SUPREME COURT.

WELLINGTON SESSIONS. -.„,.•- - ■ By Telegraph—Press Association. '"' Wellington, Monday. The criminal sessions of the Supreme Court opened this morning. .The Chief Justice, in his charge to the Grand Jury, mentioned that the list was rather a long one, 19 persons being charged with various offences. A Maori youth, Puhipi, wag sentenced to two .year's' imprisonment on five charges of false pretences and forgery. HORSE THIEF SENTENCED. A GRAVE OFFENCE. Wellington, Last iNight. 'At the Supreme Court to-day the Grand Jury returned true Mis in all cases except that of Sidney Diamond, charged with the forgery of a proposal for insurance. A youth named Charles Johnson, alias Sweeney, alias McGuire, was' convicted of stealing a horse at Otaki, and was sentenced to five months' imprisonment Robert Anderson was convicted of an offence on a girl under the age of sixteen and was remanded for sentence.

THE CONFIDENCE TRICK. Wellington, Last Night. At the Supreme Court to-dav, William Patrick McDermott, formerly in the police force both in Australia and New Zealand, was found guilty on several charges of fraud, chiefly comprising attempts, some successful and some unsuccessful, to obtain money from persons by means of forged letters partaking of the character of what is known as the "confidence trick." The charges were all similar, but affecting different people. The prisoner would find out that two particular people were acquainted, and would send a. letter to one of them with a request for money to be sent to a certain place, as if the communication came from the recipient's friend. Then he would write to the person with whom the money was to be posted, stating that he would call or send to see if anything Had been left for him. The prisoner was remanded for sentence till Saturday.