Embedded Files
Thurlow | Lucey | Berthelsen | Hanran | Madden | McPherson | Storrie | Dewe
Roma District Court
Thursday, May 17 [1900]
Before his Honor Judge Noel
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
Horse Stealing
Thomas Wharton was charged with having on the 18th April, 1899, unlawfully disposed of one mare, the property of James Madden.
The prisoner pleaded not guilty.
The following jury was empanelled:— Henry Knayer, William Atkins, Thomas Spence, David M'Phee, Edward Glazier, Wilson Miscamble, Thomas Asthorpe, Michael Mullavey, John Henry Raper, Henry Kadel, William Stephenson, and Robert Taylor.
The Crown Prosecutor briefly reviewed the facts of the case, and called the following evidence.
James Carroll, police constable stationed at Roma, sworn, gave evidence of his arrest of the prisoner, and of a conversation between them, in the course of which the prisoner denied the charge.
Norah Madden, sworn, deposed: I am a married woman, living in Cunnamulla, and the mother of James Madden, and know the prisoner; recollect seeing him in Cunnamulla last year. I do carrying and own a cart and harness, and my son owns two mares, a bay and a grey mare. I had some furniture to carry from Cunnamulla to Barringun for a woman named Mrs Laiff. My son had a bad hand and was unable to drive, so I arranged with prisoner to take the furniture to Barringun, a distance of 80 miles, for £2, with the cart and the two mares. He was to return the cart, harness, and horses in fourteen days. I saw him again in Cunnamulla, some time afterwards and asked him where the cart and horse were that he had taken away. He said that the grey mare was dead, and the bay mare and cart and harness were at Barringun. Saw him next in January this year at Cunnamulla. I asked him if he had written about the mare, and he said he had and would bring the letter down to me. I asked him how the mare was, and he said it was dead too. I never authorised him to sell the horses.
By Prisoner: I authorised you by wire, in reply to your letter, to take £7 for the cart and two sets of harness. You did not tell me that you sold the mare and gave me the money.
By Mr Dickson: There was no mention of horses whatever in the correspondence.
James Madden, son of last witness, sworn, deposed: Know the prisoner. The bay mare in the yard was his property, and is branded ZYZ on near shoulder. He was to deliver my horses back to me in Cunnamulla in October last year, and he told me the grey mare was dead, and he was paying 1s. 6d. a week for the bay mare at Barringun.
By Prisoner: I did not say that the mares did not belong to me, and you could do what you liked with them.
George Flanagan, a shearer, sworn, deposed: I know the bay mare in the court yard shown to me this morning. Prisoner exchanged it to me for a bay horse.
Alfred Hulley, boundary rider, sworn, deposed: I know prisoner. I know the bay mare, having owned it. I got it from a man named Flanagan, giving him another bay mare for it. This was about the beginning of May, 1898. Sold it to a man named Brown the following August.
William Brown, laborer, living at Cunnamulla, sworn, deposed: I know the bay mare shown to me in the court yard this morning, as I got it from a man named Hulley about June last year. I gave him a chestnut horse for it. The mare remained in my possession until the police took it in March last.
By his Honor: I consider the horse is worth £6 or £7.
His Honor, in summing up, said the evidence was very simple, and it they were satisfied from it, that the prisoner, having got the mare into his possession, disposed of it with the intention of depriving James Madden of his property, they would find him guilty. Nothing had been returned to Madden, and the prisoner had given no account of the property. The prisoner had lied all through. He lied to the police, to Mrs Madden, and also to James Madden, and that pointed to nothing but guilt.
The prisoner asked his Honor to extend the privilege of the first Offenders Probation Act as it was the first time he had been to gaol.
The police reported there was no previous conviction against the prisoner.
His Honor sentenced the prisoner to twelve months' hard labor in Roma gaol, the sentence to be suspended under the First Offenders Probation Act on the prisoner making restitution to William Brown of the value of the horse—i.e. £7.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse