ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23752, 25 September 1942, Page 7

ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE

♦ ARGUMENT IN COURT OF APPEAL (P.A.) WELLINGTON, September 24. The Court of Appeal was engaged today in hearing a case stated by Mr Justice Kennedy for its opinion pursuant to section 442 of the Crimes Act. 1908, and arising from the prosecution of Henry Arthur Hirt, who was convicted at the July sittings of the Supreme Court at Dunedin, on a charge of unlawfully using an instrument with intent to procure the miscarriage of Gladys Agnes Short, Hirt was arrested at his rooms in Dunedin in May last, and a room adjoining the hospital ward in which Short was in bed was declared a Magistrate’s Court and the deposition was taken of Short, who died on May 18 At the trial an objection was made that Hirt’s solicitor, George Tyrrell Baylee, did not have full opportunity to crossexamine the witness. Her deposition was admitted, not as a dying declaration, but under sections 172 and 173 of the Justices ox the Peace Act, 1927.

The questions for the opinion of the Court are whether her deposition was properly admitted in evidence, and, if not, wh3t course should have been taken. The case is proceeding.