A REMARKABLE CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 404, 1 May 1902, Page 2

A REMARKABLE CASE.

A WOMAN’S SHOCKING STATEMENT FOR DEFENCE. (Per Press Association. ) WELLINGTON, last night. At the Supreme Court to-day the whole sitting was occupied in the hearing of a charge preferred against John Wright, of having stolen ill'll), the property of J. O’Meara, licensee of the Empire Hotel, iVlasterton, on the lfUli April. The theft had been committed by some person who entered O’Meara’s bedroom, and removed the keys of the sale, in which the money was locked, from beneath O’Meara’s pillow while he was asleep. The evidence for the crown sought to show that accused practically admitted the offence to a person named O’liaison ; that accused had- been absent from his lodgings at the Occidental Hotel from 11 o'clock on the night of Die robbery until 5 o’clock next morning, and that pieces of paper were put in the jamb of O’Meara's door to soften the sound ot the door being shut, and the ligures on those pieces of paper coincided with ligures found in a memorandum book in ‘the accused's possessipn. The defence was aii alibi, in support of which the barmaid at the Central Hotel at Mastertou swore that the defendant was in her room from. 11 p.m. on the 18th until 5 o’clock in the morning. The night-porter at the Central hotel swore to seeing the accused coming from this woman’s room in the morning."

The jury after four hours’ retirement failed to agree, and were discharged. There will he a new trial.