PLEA OF NOT GUILTY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22767, 20 July 1939, Page 7

PLEA OF NOT GUILTY

BREAKING AND ENTERING CHARGE EVIDENCE FOR CROWN (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, July 19. In the Supreme Court, the trial was begun of Geoffrey Spicer Kean, aged 22, a clerk. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of breaking and entering the house of Miss K. M. Heston, at Napier, with intent to commit a crime. Mr Cunningham, for the Crown, said the real issue was whether accused was one of three men alleged to have been concerned with the breaking and entering. Two of them, Courlander and Matterson, had been already dealt with by the Supreme Court. Miss Heston was secretary of the Gaiety Theatre, and had charge of The theatre keys and safe keys. On returning home at 9.50 o’clock on Easter Monday night, she opened the kitchen door, found the light would not go on, and as she was about to strike a match she was struck on the shoulders and knocked down, her head being bumped on the floor. When she started to scream loudly neighbours came in at once. They found Courlander and Matterson in the house. They would swear that Kean was the third man. He knew Miss Heston, having been to her house as a boy and having had meals there, the last one about the New Year. Roy Nicholas Courlander, a hotel steward, said Kean took him and Matterson to the house in Napier, and Kean and Matterson entered it, while he remained outside, adjusting his spectacles, and he was still outside when a scuffle and screams occurred inside. It was untrue that Kean parted company from them at Paekakariki. Cross-examined, he said he had been sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for breaking and entering, but the Court of Appeal had altered it to a term of probation. He had endeavoured to show at his trial that he entered the house to have a meal, understanding from Kean that Miss Heston would not mind. John Kitching Matterson gave evidence similar to Courlander’s. He said the woman came in while he was groping about in the dark, and they fell down together. He was convicted of breaking and entering; but acquitted of assault. It was not true that Kean remained at Paekakariki. When he was invited into the house he did not question the right of Kean to take him into it. The Crown case was not concluded at the adjournment until to-morrow.