LEAVE TO APPEAL REFUSED

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 3

LEAVE TO APPEAL REFUSED

APPLICATION BY MRS HASKELL

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 15. The application of Pansy Louise Frances Haskell for leave to appeal from her conviction on, a charge of murder at Auckland on March 13 was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in a judgment delivered this morning. The Court’s judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Kennedy, rejected all the submissions of counsel for ‘Mrs Haskell. As to the first submission that the prisoner had been tried by a jury of. 11, the Court held that submission had no foundation in law or on the facts. As to the second submission that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, the Court said that in its view there was ample evidence to support the jury’s verdict and, in particular, it could not be said that the jury could not reasonably have reached the. conclusion it did as to the identification of the prisoner with the person who committed the murder. As to the third submission that the judge in his directions to the jury had failed properly to put the case to the jury, the Court said that the summing up, far from being unsatisfactory, did, in its opinion, fairly and adequately place the issue before the jury.