COURT OF APPEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1922, Page 5

COURT OF APPEAL.

NEW PLYMOUTH CASE SUCCEEDS. By Telegraph.—Press Association Wellington. May 1. In the three cases against the Northern Steamship Company, heard on April 7, claiming damages for failure to receive fruit on boa d the Rarawa at One--11 unga, the Appeal Court, by. three to one (Sir Robert Stout dissenting), allowed the appeal, and the case was remitted to the Supreme Court for assessment of damages. Plaintiffs were allowed one set of costs on the middle scale as on a case from a distance. MENTAL DEFECTIVES ACT. Wellington. May 1. The Court of Appeal gave judgment this morning in The King v. John Leonard (heard March 29), a case in which the husband was convicted under the provisions of the Mental Defectives Act for having intercourse with his wife, who was detained under the provisions of the Mental Defectives Act. The jury found Leonard “guilty, but with a strong recommendation to mercy, as we believe the act was committed through ignorance, also the laxity of the hospital authorities in not warning prisoner.” The Court, by a majority of three to one, affirmed the conviction on the ground that the words of the statute were plain and they could not hold Parliament did not mean what it said. Mr. Justice Stringer dissented, and considered the words “every person” in the Act should not be read to include the husband.