THE CHRISTCHURCH MURDER.
ROBERTS’ SENTENCE COMMUTED.
f Pint Press Association. 1 CHRISTCHURCH. Nov. 29.
A telegram from the ' Minister of - Justice was received yesterday by the Lyttelton gaol authorities, stating that His Excellency the Governor had been pleased to commute the death sentence passed last week on "Arthur Roberts for the murder of Alice Newman, in the Silver Grid restaurant, to one of imprisonment for life. The officialdocuments are not yet to hand, but when the glad news of his. reprieve was communicated to Roberts by the chief warder (in the absence of the governor of the gaol. Mr. Ironsides, who is still laid up sueffring from the effects of his recent accident, caused by the capsizing of the police van) lie received itwith great- calmness, and had nothiv.-g to say. He had-been looking forward with great confidence as if he bad fully expected a reprieve, and had been in good spirits, while he has slept well, and liis appetite has been excellent. The Rev. J. J. Bates and T. J. Smaill, lay evangelist, have been- visiting Roberts regularly in liis cell. ’ There are now seven men in Lyttelton gaol serving life sentences, three forT murder, and the Others for serious crimes. It is .somewhat- of a coincidence that Air. W. J. Hunter; -who appeared for Roberts at the trial, yesterday forwarded a largely-signed petition to tlio Minister for Justice for transmission" to His Excellency the Governor, praying that .Roberts’ sentence might bo commuted.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19091130.2.27
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2672, 30 November 1909, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
244THE CHRISTCHURCH MURDER. Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2672, 30 November 1909, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
The Gisborne Herald Company is the copyright owner for the Gisborne Times. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Gisborne Herald Company. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in