A WIDOW’S TURKEYS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1921, Page 5

A WIDOW’S TURKEYS.

SENTENCING OF MAHER. TWO MONTHS AND £lOO FINE. Wanganui, Monday. James Maher, who was convicted by a jury of receiving turkeys knowing them to be stolen, came before Mr. Justice Reed on Saturday for sentence. His Honor eaid that the jury had found the prisoner guilty of a particularly contemptible crime, contemptible for tv&o reasons: He was not driven through necessity to take the turkeys, and secondly, that the jury, by its verdict, .inferred that he acquiesced in if he did not take part in the crime. The prisoner was a man of considerable wealth; he was reputed to be worth £lOO,OOO. If it was a case of a poor ■man who, through want, took the turkeys for the purpose of supplying that want, or the ease of sportsmen who, passing through a place where there were tame turkeys, with no consideration, shot and stole them, one might view the case with a little sympathy. Such cases would warrant treatment he (his Honor) could not extend to the prisoner. The verdict of the jury inferred by its finding that the prisoner authorised, if he did not take actual part in, a very deliberate scheme. Id a valuable motor car they set out at miunight, either he or his agents, with the deliberate intention of robbing a widow, and he afterwards sought to establish his case by committing deliberate perjury. His Honor’s sentence was two months’ imprisonment, the prisoner to pay in addition a fine of £lOO and to pay the costs of Court, £3l JOs 6d, also to make restitution of the value of the two turkeys, which he assessed at £1; in default of payment of the fine a further term of imprisonment for four months at the expiration of the two months. [Earlier details of the case are on 7'l J