The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-20 00:00:00

CRIMINAL COURT-(THIS DAY•)

OLD COURT.

:Before Mr. Justice Erle and Mr. Justice Crowder.)

TV2n. Howe, Wm. Thompson, and Gavan, .Rickards,
three respectable-looking men, the former of whom has
for some time practised as a solicitor at the different
police courts, surrendered to take their trial for misde-
meanour, in having unlawfully conspired together to
defraud the ends of justice, by means of perjury and
false representations. .

Mr. Bodkin, Mr. Ballantine, and Mr. Sleigh were
counsel for the prosecution. Mr. Parry, Mr. Metcalfe,
and Mr. Horne appeared for the defendants.

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The facts of this case have appeared ♦ery recently,
and were of a very extraordinary character. The in-
dictment against the defendants charged them with
having conspired together, in three instances, to obtain
the discharge upon bail of persons known as notorious
thieves, and who were in custody for' serious offences.
From the statement of the counsel for the prosecution,
it appeared that, in the month of April, two women,
named Scott and Bletchford, were taken into custody
for a daring robbery in Regent-street, and were com-
mitted to take their trial at the Westminster sessions.
An application was subsequently made to Mr. Justice
Wightman, at Chambers, to admit Bletchford to bail,
and the defendant Thompson made an affidavit that he
had served a notice of the application to the prosecutor ;
and Horne appeared before the judge and said that the pro-
secutor consented to bail being taken, and it was alleged
that Rickards appeared upon the sume occasion, and
represented himself to be the clerk to the solicitor for
the prosecution, and he said that there was no objec-
tion to bail being taken. Upon this state of things the
learned judge directed that Bletchford should be ad-
mitted to bail. The prisoner was consequently dis-
charged from custody ; he did not surrender, and, of
course, escaped from justice. It then turned out that
the bail were persons of no means, and the ends of jus-
tice were thus entirely defeated. It was alleged that in
two other cases, the proof being that of a man named
Roberts, a well-kncwa member of the swell mob,
who was charged with a robbery at the banking
house of Messrs. Barnett, Hoare, and Co., a similar
scene of proceeding was adopted, but in both these in-
stances the proceeding was unsuccessful, and Roberts
was convicted and sentenced to transportation. The
case for the prosecution was that the defendants, or some
of them at all events, had deliberately entered into a
systematic plan of operations for the purpose of defeat-
ing justice, by obtaining the release of notorious thieves
by means of devices of every description, forgery of the
most extensive character being among them ; and it ap-
peared that one of the persons who had been in the habit
of offering himself as bail during the course of the trams
actions had since been transported for felony, and the
other had left the country.

A legal discussion arose at the close of the opening
statement of the learned counsel for the prosecution as
to whether it was competent to give evidence in support
of the three separate cases, the evidence affecting each
of the prisoners in a different degree; and eventually the
jury were discharged from giving a -verdict in the case
of Collins and Roberts, as regarded Rickards, and the
case was proceeded with against the defendants upon
the case of Bletchford.

Evidence was then gone into, and the trial was pro-
ceeding when our report left.

NEW COURT.
(Before the Recorder.)

Thomas Blair, 49, tailor, pleaded guilty to an indict-
ment for bigamy.
Mary Ann Malcolm, the second wife, said that the
prisoner had worked for her first husband. He told
her previously to their being married that he had been
united to a woman in Scotland, but that it was not
regular marriage. .k.fter then he said he had never
been married at all, but she finding a letter which con-
♦inced her that that was not true had him taken into
custody. He had very much ill-used her since marriage.
He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.