AMY BOCK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3200, 28 May 1909, Page 5

AMY BOCK.

SENTENCE OF IMPRISONMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association. DUNEDIN, May 27. Amy Bock came before the Supreme Court to-day ior sentence on a charge of forgery and uttering, two charges of false pretences, and a charge of making a false statement under the Marriage Act, 1908. Mr Moore, who appeared for accused, proceeded to deal with accused s past history. She gave her age as 47, and was just able to remember her mother, before the latter was taken to an asylum. Her mother died in a mental, asylum in Australia. Accused was brought up in a ladies' boarding school in Melbourne, and while she was there her father lo;t a lou&ici rable sum of money, necessitating her returning home. Then she studied for a teacher, and got a licanse when 13 or 14 years of age. Within a year or so counsel understood she was convicted and discharged for false pretences in Australia. She then came to New Zealand. Dealing with the case in which accused forged Rcy's name to a receipt -counsel said tliat while in town accused met a woman who knew her past, and had been kind to her in the past, but who at that particular moment was very hard up. This woman demanded from her £2O, stating that if she did not re ceive the money she would go to Roy and expose accused's past, and get her dismissed. Accused tried to put her off, but was unsuccessful, and. committed forgery and obtained the money under a bill of sale from Mr Ellis. Either one or two days after she had received the money she wrote to Ellis, telling him she had committed the crime, that the receipt was a forgery, and that she intended to meet him. She did not meet him. She got afraid she would be run in by the police. She did her best to evada the police, and evading them led to other crimes. From accused's past there was a possibility, if not a probability, that she was not responsible for her actions, and he would ask the Court to have her examined bv mental experts as tp the condition of her mind. Dr. De Lautour, who was for many years one of the examiners in medical jurisprudence, would say that accused was not responsible for her actions. His Honor: If so she ought to be sent to an asylum and kept there. After the passing of sentence she will be examined medically, but I am not going to commit her to an asylum now. ! His Honor said to accused: '*Yoa will be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of two years with hard labour on each charge concurrently, and will also be declared an habitual criminal. If it.be the case that the prisoner is mentally deficient that can be ascertained, and she can get into an asylum in the proper manner. That will be a matter for the consideration of the Government afterwards."