JURY ACQUITS DEAF MUTE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27010, 9 April 1953, Page 7

JURY ACQUITS DEAF MUTE

Charge Of Murdering Elderly Woman NO KNOWN PRECEDENTS IN ■ BRITISH LAW (From the London Correspondent of "The Press") LONDON, March 25. A case unique in British legal history ended at Cardiff Assizes yesterday when a jury acquitted George Roberts, aged 46, a gardener, of a charge of murdering a 78-year-old spinster. For two days Roberts had sat uncomprehending in the prisoner’s dock of the Court while barristers argued whether he was fit to plead to the charge. For the accused was a deaf mute and could neither read or write, and his only method of communication was by acting in simple mime or by scrawling rough drawings.

“There appears to be nothing in the circumstances of the case tn point to the accused,” said Mr Justice Devlin, when he directed the jury to acquit Roberts. “The evidence comes down to the fact that Roberts was seen before and after the crime, and the fact that he had previously had a knife in his possession. “These things were coupled with certain statements said to have been obtained from a man with whom communication was almost impossible,” said Mr Justice Devlin. “You could never have been asked to convict on evidence of that sort.” Legal experts believe that it was the first time in the history of Britisn Courts that a prisoner, who was deaf, dumb, and unable to read or write, had faced a capital charge. Lawyers in the case were unable to find any other case like it, and could quote no legal precedents. Determination of Disability

Before the Judge allowed the jury to start on the unusual case, he directed that they would first have to find whether the deaf mute was “silent by malice, or mute by the visitation of God.” When they found Roberts “mute by the visitation of God.” the Judge said that the ordinary course would then be to direct a verdict of not guilty, but the prosecution submitted that a further issue should be put to the jury whether Roberts, as a deaf mute, was fit to plead. If the had been found unfit to plead, the Court would then have had to order his detention as a criminal lunatic, and this would have precluded any inquiry into his alleged guilt. The Judge, however, stated that the defence could not be forced into a position where it had to decide whether to play for safety and obtain a verdict under which the accused could be detained as a criminal lunatic, or whether it should take a gamble. Pointing out the danger of an innooent man being detained as a luntic, the Judge ordered that the jury should be sworn in to try Roberts in the usual way.

To the Judge, the Crown prosecution admitted that, apart from the statements alleged to have been communicated to the police by Roberts, there was no evidence on which the jury could be asked to convict. On the second day of the case, after the legal arguments had finished, the Crown offered no further evidence, and the jury acquitted the accused. After the trial Roberts returned to his home in the village of Laugharne. There, in his whitewashed cottage, he grasped the hands of his bachelor uncles who had set aside most of their life savings for his defence. He could say nothing, but he mimed his pleasure. And for reporters, he drew two crude sketches of what he would do now that he was free. The first—a rough picture of a man x holding a spade—was taken to mean that he would return to his old job of gardening. The second —a drawing of a boat and a man fishing—meant that he would have a holiday after nine weeks’ imprisonment while he was awaiting trial.