SUPREME COURT

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 69, 5 June 1869, Page 3

SUPREME COURT

CRIMINAL SESSIOX,

(Before His Honour Mr. Justice Ward.)

(Condensed from the "Daily Times.")

The Session was opened on Tuesday last. His Honour charged the Grand Jury as lollows :—: —

Mr. Foreman and Gentleman of the Grand Jury — 1 am happy to be ablo to congratulate you, Unit on the present, occasion the calender is the lightest that has been known m Dunedin lor some years. There are only se\ea prisoners, cnarged with 10 crimes, for tn:.J. Had there been any unusual circumstance to cause this diminution of crime, 1 should not have been able to congratulate you as I do ; but inasmuch as there has been no diminution of the population, or other circumstances to account for it, I think the matter is clearly one for congratulation, and one reflecting the highest credit on the orderly character of the population, and bearing the clearest testimony to the vigilance and efficiency of the police force. There is one crime to which 1 feel bound to refer as being one palpably on the increase, and indeed becoming quite common, in the colony, namely, that of obtaining money on false pretences, by means of passing valueless cheques on Banks in -which the persons drawing them have no accounts. There is no necessity for a person tendering such cheques to make any representation concerning them in order to constitute a fraud. The mere act of uttering is sufficient, and the crime is complete when by means of tendering it the persons doing so obtains either goods or money. There are, in the Calendar, four cases of this nature, three of them being, however, against the same person. In one of these latter %ases the prosecutor might have saved himself from loss had lie exercised only ordinary care. In the case of the man against whom the three charges are made, the iirst charge is that he tendered a cheque for £20 in payment for a liorse, receiving £'6 in change, and the crime being therefore complete. In the second, supreme folly is shown on the part of the prosecutor, for it appears that tne prisoner went into the shop of Mr. Levien, bootmaker, asked for a blank cheque, tilled it up, and got two five pemnd notes for it, notwithstanding that Mr. Levien hardly knew him by sight, and that it does not appear that lie was a customer. 1 really question, and I think it worth consideration, whether, in a case such as this, the prosecutor does not almost deserve to lose his money, for any person ofl'ering such facilities for fraud can hardly complain, if he be cheated. Another case of a similar kind is one of a man running up a small bill at an hotel, and tendering a cheque in payment. In this particular case the crime was completed, as the cheque was paid, and change taken out of it. In many cases it is difficult for hotel-keepers to prevent themselves being defrauded. A man goes to an hotel and stops there until he has run up a bill ; he then tells the landlord that lie has no ready money wherewith to pay it, and offers to give him a cheque, and the landlord must either accept what he offers, or run the chance of losing Ms money altogether. There is also a rather serious case of forgery which will be brought before you. I do not know exactly whether the charge will be one of forgery or of uttering, but I need hardly tell you that in cases of this nature, it is almost always impossible to prove the actual, crime of the forgery of a cheque. There is, however, in this qase, no difficulty with, regard to proving

the uttering of the forged cheque, and the attendant circumstances clearly point to its having been done with a guilty knowledge. The facts of the case appear to bethat a man named Littlccott took lodgings with a Mr. Cairns, who is in the employ of Messrs-. A. and T. Inglis, telling him at the time that he was a clerk in the house of Whittingham Brothers. Some time afterwards he went to- the shop of the Messrs. inglis, and purchased some goods, in payment for which lie tendered a cheque, purporting to be drawn by Whittingham Brothers, the signature bearing some resemblance to that of that firm. It was, however, proved afterwards that the cheque was a forgery ; and also that Littlecott was not only not in the employ of that firm, but never had been, nor was he even known to them. However, he passed the cheque and got an amount of change out of it. You will have brought before you one case of embezzlement which needs no particular remark, and two cases of horse-stealing. In the first case a man named Oliver hired a horse for a day, then rode him off, and sold him at the end of his journey. Formerly it would have been somewhat difficult to convict him of stealing a horse under those circumstances, as it was delivered into his hands ; but by an alteration in the present law it is decided that any person becoming a bailee of chattels or money, or a horse, and converting the property so entrusted to him to his own use, is guilty of larceny, although it may, iv the first instance, have come honestly into his power. There is one case of housebreaking, which is rather a complicated one, and in which, I must say, the evidence ia somewhat conflicting. The iirst evidence, that of the prosecutor, is that ho is a shepherd, and that on the morning of the 9th September he left his hut, at the Bollamy Station, locked the door, and put the key under the thatch. When he returned in the afternoon, he found his goods scattered about the hut, and missed two blankets and some other things. The prisoner Conroy had been in the hut two days previ jnsly, but had not been seen there since then. Another man, however, a di ayman, had seen him coming from the direction of the hut, with a swag on his back. There was nothing singular in tlint, except that it was within a milo or two of the place where the robbeiy was committed. In order to identify the prisoner, the prosecutor can sv*ear that lie had on a pair of trousers peculiarly patched at the knees, and these trousers are the connecting link between the prisoner and tlip robbery. Some time after this the prisoner was arrested, and subsequently the trousers referred to, two pairs of blue blankets, a:id a tent fly, .were found together near the place where he was arrested. The evidence is thus connected with the fact ; first the prisoner is seen within a mile or two of the hut where the robbery takes place, and coming from it : next, the blankets and a pair of trousers patched at the knees are found in the place supposed to he his camp. This is the whole of the evidence there is to connect him with the robbery, and it is for you to say whether that be suitieient or not. There js another c;i<;c against a surgeon, named Goiuisir, to which I will allude. The evidoncj in diis case shows that the landlord of an hotel went upstairs, leaving a watch and a chain hanging in the bar, and the prisoner down & Lairs. He, however, did. not miss his watch for two hours afterwards, nor was suspicion aroused against the prisoner until it was fonnd thsfc lie had been paying away a particular sovereign which had been attached to the chain, and on search being made, the watch was found in one of his pockets, and the chain in another. These, I think, are the whole of the circumstances to which I need direct your attention.

FORGERY AND TTTTERIjS'G.

Robert Littlecott was arraigned on a charge of having, on the Ist May, 1869, feloniously forged a certain cheque for £9, on the Bank of Australasia, with intent to defraud. There was also a count for uttering. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, and was undefended. Sentenced to penal servitude for three years.

STEALING.

Thomas Henry Goodsir, surgeon, pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a gold watch and steel chain, of the value of £20, and £1 in money, from the hotel of Mr. Donovan, at Lawrence, on March 18fch, the property of the said Mr. Donovan.

The prisoner, in pleading guilty, stated that he had been at Tuapeka, and while there had sustained a severe Joss of blood, which had caused him to be subject to epileptic attacks, which attacks had led to mental aberation, and it was while suffering from that that he had unwittingly committed the act with which he was charged. He pleaded this in extenuation of the crime, of which lie had no doubt he had in a moment of insanity been guilty. His Honour said there was no evidence to show that 'his statements with regcird to his health were correct. It would, however, probably, be enquired into ; but the law was no respecter of persons. The prisoner was sentenced to penal servitude for three years.

HOE.SE STEALING.

George Oliver pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a mare, the property of Richard John Vye, and another charge of stealing a mare, the property of his master. He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment with hard labour for each offence, and that the sentence be cumulative.

FALSE PRETENCES.

Henry Oswald Carey pleaded guilty to charges of having, by means of false pretences, obtained from Caspar Joseph Levien two £5 notes ; also, from John Bonner, a horse and £3, and from Wm. Sinclair the sum of £9. The false pretences complained of were representations that certain, cheques drawn by him, one for £10, and one for £23, on the Bank of New Zealand, Oamaru, and one for £20 on the Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin, were good and valid cheques ; whereas they were, and he knew them to be, valueless. Sentenced to two months hard labour for each offence, sentence to be cumulative.

EMBEZZLEMENT.

Henry Tomlinson Towndrow pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzlement, on the 22nd January, of the- sum of £11 165., also of £10 195., and also of £5 45., the moneys of his employer, Robert "Wilson.

He was sentencec to 18 months hard labour.

FALSE PRETENCES.

Corfitz Cronquist was indicted on a charge of obtaining from John Cranley, on the 13th March, the sum of 9s. 6d. , by means of fraudulently pretending that a certain cheque for £1, drawn by him on the Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin, was a good and genuine cheque, whereas hewell knew that the cheque was valueless. He was sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for two years.

HOUSEKREAKIN'Gv

John Conroy was indicted foF having, on the 9th September, 1868, broken in+o and entered the dwelling house of James Dow, at Bellamy station, near Tuapeka, and stolen therefrom a quantity of goods the property of the said James Dow. He was sentenced to penal servitude for four years.