LOSS OF PEARLS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 February 1939, Page 6

LOSS OF PEARLS

THEFT CHARGE AGAINST YOUNG WOMAN.

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. February 8. T’ne disappearance of a string of pearls valued at £265 was investigated in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Fair and a jury, when_ a young woman, Elizabeth Ellen Goodhue, was charged with the theft of a necklace, the property of Lady Mary Isabel Hay Allen. Accused was alternatively charged with receiving the pearls. She was found not guilty.

Mr V. R. Meredith conducted the case for the Crown and Mr Henry appeared for accused, who pleaded not guilty. Lady Allen gave evidence as to the I.sappearanee of the pearls while she was a patient in an hospital. Accused, in evidence, said she was 19 years old.. As she was going to a dance she took the pearls to wear with a low-necked dress. She intended to put them back next day. She took them back, but next day she was not on duty and could not return them, and that night she went to visit people named Bailey. She had never made a statement that she thought the pearls were valuable. When the string broke she got annoyed and threw them into the fire. She did not retain any of the pearls and had no intention of keeping them for herself. She thought the value of the pearls would be about 2s 6d and no more.

Addressing the jury, Mr Henry said there had been no intent .of stealing the pearls. It had been suggested that accused should have known the difference between imitations and real pearls, but it was easy to make a mistake. The question was whether she had a criminal intention at the particular time. She had worn the pearls openly to the dance and, but for an unfortunate happening, would have put them back. Accused had not had the guidance of a father for the last five'years, but her life had been blameless.

Mr Meredith said the average girl had some idea of the value of jewellery. The witness Bailey had . said that it was in September, some time after accused left the hospital, that he saw her with the string of pearls. His Honour said it was immaterial to the issue whether the girl knew the value of the pearls, and her real defence was that she did not intend to keep them but only to borrow them. The throwing of the pearls into a fire disclosed a definite intention to treat them as her own and deprive the owner cf them permanently. After a comparatively short retirement the jury returned with a verdict of not guilty and accused was discharged. .