The Warwickshire Herald. — 1888-01-26 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

TWENTY YEARS FOR ARSON.  On Saturday at the Old Bailey, before Mr. Justice Charles, tile trial was concluded of Leon Serne and John Henry Goldfinch, on the charge of setting fire to the forrner's house in the Strand in September last.—Mr. Justice Charles, in summing up, referred to the fact that the prisoner had been tried and acquitted last session on the charge of wilful murder, the evidence on that charge being practically the same as in this case for arson. But it was not for them to say whits was in the minds of She last jury. They were only trying the men on the charge of murder, and they had no power to reduce the charge to one of arson. They might, for anything the present jury knew, have thought that the prisoners did not set fire to the place, but they were not asked to pass judgment on such a point because it was not referred to them. Or, they might have thought that they did, or that one of them did, cause the ere, but that they shrunk from the terrible conclusion that they had the intent to destroy the byes of Serne's two boys. Therefore, it was for the present jury to decide independently altogether of the previous inquiry, whether the two prisoners, or luther of them, committed the crime of arson. His lordship then went through the evidence, pointing out the pecuniary difficulties of Serne, and his getting his things over-insured. There was the strongest possible motive for Serne doing wrong, if wrong he did. He was without a shilling in the world, he had no money to pay pressing debts, he had a bill of sale on everything he possessed in the world, including goods he had got on credit, and there was a half -year's rent which would accrue in the course of a few days. The motive was obvious, and it would be for the jury to say whether the facts fitted in with that motive. In regard to the extreme facility with which Berne seemed to have been able to effect an insurance on things now sworn to have been of very little value, his lordship could not help saying that the insurance company's valuer appeared to have made a very cursory inspection. If there was more than one file then the matter was more than 01319 of suspicion. If there was only one, and which was the result of accident, then they had not a single attempt at an explanation of such possible accident. He carefully distinguished between the evidence relating to Sere and Goldfinch. 'There was material evidence against both, but be must confess that the evidence against Goldfinch was exceedingly slender, and they must be careful not to convict him merely on suspicion.—The prisoner Sern6, Ly consent of the judge, siddreued the jury in regard to his looking after the house in New Oxford-street, and his having placed certain inflammable materials in the cellar, in both of which he said he acted with perfect bondfides.—After an absence of 50 minute', the jury returned vritti • verdict of guilty against Sere, and not guilty against Goldfinch.-1 he court was then informed Berne had several times been convicted of various offences in Amsterdam, and had been also tried and convicted in that court on a charge of false pretences and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. —The sentence on Sere was now 20 years' penal servitude.