COURT NOT LEFT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 12

COURT NOT LEFT.

JURY RETURNS VERDICT. MARRIED WOMAN ACQUITTED. Without leaving the Court, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the case in which Maria Scully, aged 48, a married woman, was charged in the Supreme Court yesterday on alternative counts at assault. Accused was charged that, with Intent to do grievous bodily harm, she did actual bodily harm; that she committed aesault so as to cause a«tttal bodily harm; and that ehe committed common assault. Scully, who pleaded not guilty, was represented by Mr. Aekins, while Mr. V. R. Meredith conducted the case for the Crown. After the evidence of the Crown had been completed In the afternoon and Mr. Aekins had Intimated that he did not propose to call evidence, Mr. Justice Fair aeked whether the case was a proper one to go before a jury. The complainant, Charles Henry Cox, be said, had been in a drunken condition at the time of the alleged aSsftult. Would the jury be more justified in believing him than in believing the story of the accused, who eald that the injury to Cox wae done on Christ nuts Day in defending herself from an assault by him? ' In that sort of disgraceful drunken brawl it was just as probable that the Incident occurred for the reason stated by Scully as for the reason given by Cox. Mr. Aekins said that that was going to be his submission to the jury. To the jury his Honor said that there was no doubt that Cox had been assaulted, but that was not sufficient proof to find the' accused guilty. The attack had to be the kind named in the indictment.

After a whispered consultation the foreman of the jury announced the decision of not guilty.