SUPREME COURT, NELSON.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 999, 27 August 1872, Page 2

SUPREME COURT, NELSON.

CRIMINAL SITTINGS. [Before Mr Justice Richmond]. FRAUDULENT BANKRUPTCY Jeremiah Sheehy was charged with wilfully and fraudlently making a false statement of his effects on filing his schedule at Charleston, he having declared that he had only property to the amount of £ll, whereas he was possessed of assets amounting to more than £l5O, iu addition to which he had obtained a quantity of goods on credit immediately prior to declaring himself bankrupt. Mr H. Ad<ims appeared for the prosecution, and Mr Fell for the prisoner. Ernest Charles Kelling, clerk of the District Court of Westland North, said : 1 know the prisoner, who was a miner at Charleston. He filed a declaration of insolvency on the Gth June last, which 1 produce, together with the verified list of creditors and statement of assets and liabilities. On the 27th June he was adjudicated a bankrupt. He was at that time examined as to his affairs, and handed in the list produced, which he said represented the whole of his property. J. B. Fisher: I am a solicitor practising at Westport. The lists produced were signed, and the affidavits made before me. Cross-examined: I drew up the lists under instructions from the prisoner. I asked the prisoner at the time if he had any more property, and he said, No. I don't recollect his saying anything about having some drapery, and my telling him that would go down as furniture. I asked him when the debts were contracted, and on his telling me that some of them were contracted a short time previously, I

I warned him that ho would have to be careful.

Solomon Ellis : I am bailiff of the District Court at Charleston. I re. member prisoner being adjudicated a bankrupt. He was examined upon oath as to his property. He. said, in reply to a question from Judge Harvey, that his schedule coutained a correct statement of his assets, which, if anything, were raLher over-ea. timated. The Judge, after examining him at some length, told him to stand down, and he would file a criminal information against him. On being examined by one of the creditors, he said that he had nothing more than was in his schedule, except a part of a quarter-chest of tea, part of a hag of flour, and a very small portion of butter. I afterwards went to his house and seized two quarter-chests and part of a quarter-chest of tea, two bags, and a part of a bag of flour, half a cask of butter, a full box of cocoa, 251bs currants and raisins, a full bag of sugar, and about 401bs in another bag, a quantity of new drapery to the value of £26 10s, including two French dresses, a quantity of flannel, two or three pieces of plaid for children's dresses, six yards waterproof cloth, 20 yards ho! land, a piece of green baize, two pairs of lambs-wool stocking?. Most of the drapery goods were secreted between the mattrasses. Next day I seized the house, three dams, and 75 fluming boxes. The dams and boxes- fetched £2O at auction. There was about £25 worth of furni. ture, of which I seized £ls worth, which was afterwards returned to prisoner's wife. The goods which I seized were sold for £B9 16s. The value of the goods that were left for him and his wife was about £6O. Cross-examined : I filed a list of what I seized in t'>e Court. In that list I put down Mrs Sheehy's clothes, &c, at £25, and his clothes at £lO. The way I discovered that the fluming was prisoner's was by seizing it, and finding that nobody else claimed it. By the Court: I found all the groceries under prisoner's bed. One bag of flour I discovered among a lot of dirty linen. I don't know that it was intended to secret them. There was a great quantity of sheets and towellings just used once and left un. washed. I Beized nothing that had been used.

Robert M'Coy : I am a draper residing at Charleston. I supplied prisoner with some goods in April last at three different times, to the value of about £2O. His wife ordered the goods alluded to. She took away some with her, and I took the rest to her house about 10 o'clock at night. It was not an extraordinary large order for a digger's wife to give. I did not see Sheeby when I delivered the goods. Francis McParland: lam a baker residing at Charleston. I supplied the prisoner with a bag of flour in April, and another in May. I have not been paid for them. He owes me £i. Edward Drennan : I am a storekeeper at Carleston. I supplied prisoner with groceries to the amount of £25 7s in April and May last. I saw some goods of the same descrip. tion as those he had purchased from me among those that the bailiff' seized at prisoner's house. Two or three other witnesses were called to give evidence of a similar nature, and this closed the case for the prosecution.

Mr Fell then raised a point of law in the prisoner's favor, which was, after a considerable amount of argument, overruled by the Judge. The Council fur the prosecution and defence having addressed the jury, and his Honor summed up, the jury retired, and after a short absence returned with a verdict of Guilty. Mr H. Adams said that having obtained a verdict in this case, he should not proceed with the three other iudictuieuts there were against the prisoner, arising out of the same transaction.

The prisoner being asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed, replied that he had a wife and children, and this was the first occasion on which he had ever appeared in a court during a residence of twenty years on the Goldfields. Mr Fell then produced a letter from the Rev. Father Walsh, speakinu of the character hitherto borne by the prisoner, after reading which, His Honor said, Prisoner at the bar, this letter testifies to your previons good character, independently of which this is clearly your first offence No man, however, would have the opportunity of committing such an offence as that with which you are charged unless he had previously borne a good character. You had this, but you abused it, and I fear that the same thing is often done by those who, possessing more cleverness than you, contrive to conceal their crime' These fraudulent bankrupticies, I hare reason to believe, are of frequent oc- j currence, and I must mark the sense of the Court by passing a substantial j sentence on you. The offence is ofan exceedingly grave character, and •• really a kind of thieving, indeed, it i> rather worse than entering a tradesman's shop and stealing his goods, and , yet to that I scarcely think you would have stooped. You have been guilty of abusing a law that was made W the protection of honest men, and it is my duty to endeavour to secure the public against the recurrence of such offences. I shall not go to the limit of the law, which permits mo to give you three years imprisonment, but »ha!l sentence you to one year, with hard labour.