CROWN CASE ENDS

AYES RETRIAL

NO EVIDENCE FOR DEFENCE

No evidence was called for the defence at the close of the case for the Crown in the third trial of Mrs. Isabel Annie Ayes, alias Craike, of Hastings, on seven charges of using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage, which was continued in the Supreme Court today. Evidence by medical and police witnesses was given this morning and the final addresses to the jury started at 11.10 a.m. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) presided. Mr. H. B. Lusk, Crown Prosecutor at Napier, conducted the case for the Crown, and Mr. C. G. E. Harker, of Waipawa, appeared for the accused. The accused first pleaded not guilty to the charges at Napier in * August last year. The jury disagreed, and the jury at the retrial in Wellington in October also could not reach a verdict.

The offences were alleged to have occurred between May, 1935, and June, 1936.

A search of the accused's house on June 25 last was described by police officers. Detective X.. W. Mills, of Napier, said he found seven lOUs and five promissory notes, which, the accused explained, had come from people to whom she had lent money. The amount of money represented by the entries in a book was £2250 6s for 1935.

Dr. P. P. Lynch, pathologist, of Wellington, said twenty-two fetal remains were found buried. With the exception, perhaps, of two or three, they were the bodies of premature infants.

No evidence was called for the defence.

Mr. Lusk, in his address to the jury, said the view had been expressed that a person- practising abortion should not be charged unless those who submitted to the operations were also charged. That was a completely improper idea, he said. Abortion was an extremely serious crime which could be proved only by the evidence of those who underwent the operations.

Mr. Barker impressed upon the jury .that it was not for the accused to establish her innocence—the Crown had to prove her guilt conclusively. The financial dealings of the accused, he submitted, were as consistent with the activities of a moneylender as with the offences with which she was charged.

His Honour, in his summing up, said a jury must not be swayed by. their views on (he suitability or otherwise of any particular law. They must find a verdict under the law which governed the offences charged, and if they did not agree with the law they could make a representation to the Court. It was idle to pretend, sajd his Honour, that there was not ample corroboration for the stories that had been told by the principal witnesses.

The jury retired at 1 o'clock.