The Tamworth News and Liverpool Plains and Gwydir Districts’ Advertiser, Tue 6 Apr 1886 ¹

TAMWORTH CIRCUIT COURT.
———◦———
(Before His Honor MR JUSTICE WINDEYER)
———
MONDAY, APRIL 5th.

The Court opened at 10 o’clock yesterday morning. The barristers present were Messrs—Armstrong, Crown Prosecutor, Hon HE Cohen, A Gordon, junr, BR Wise, Walter Edmunds, AJ Ralston, and Colonna Close. Judge’s Associate, Mr HM Cockshott. In addition to the local attornies [sic] Messrs Readett (Sydney), and Dale (Narrabri), were also present. Mr CW Stafford represented the Crown Solicitor.
…
    John Picton, a half-caste, pleaded “guilty” to bestiality at Pilliga, and was remanded for sentence.

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The Tamworth Observer and Northern Advertiser, Wed 7 Apr 1886 ²

CIRCUIT COURT.
———◦———
(Before His Honor MR JUSTICE WINDEYER)
———
MONDAY, APRIL 5th.

    The Court opened at 10 o’clock Monday morning. The barristers were Messrs John Armstrong, Crown Prosecutor, Hon WE Cohen, A Gordon, junr, BR Wise, Walter Edmunds, AJ Ralston, and Colonna Close. Judge’s associate, Mr HM Cockshott. In addition to the local attornies [sic], Messrs Readett (Sydney), and Bale (Narrabri), were also present. Mr CW Stafford represented the Crown Solicitor.
…
    John Picton, a half-caste, pleaded guilty to bestiality at Pilliga, and was remanded for sentence.
…

TUESDAY, APRIL 6.
———
SENTENCES.

…
    John Picton, an aboriginal, who pleaded guilty to a charge of bestiality, was briefly sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.

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The Tamworth News and Liverpool Plains and Gwydir Districts’ Advertiser, Fri 9 Apr 1886 ³

TAMWORTH CIRCUIT COURT.
———◦———
(Before His Honor WR JUSTICE WINDEYER)
———
TUESDAY, APRIL 6th.
———
SENTENCES.

    At the opening of the court, the three prisoners who pleaded guilty on the previous day, and the three who had been convicted by juries, were placed in the dock to receive their sentences.
…
    John Picton, half-caste, was sentenced to penal servitude for three years. The judge briefly commented upon the heinousness of the brutal offence which the prisoner had committed, and for the fact of his having pleaded guilty, and so spared the court the horror of listening to all the details, and also that prisoner was wanting in the advantages of education that taught right from wrong, although one would have imagined that human instinct would have been sufficient for this, the sentence of the court would have been much heavier.

¹  The Tamworth News and Liverpool Plains and Gwydir Districts’ Advertiser, Tue 6 Apr 1886, p. 2.