JOINT CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27203, 21 November 1953, Page 3

JOINT CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY

Two Men Found Guilty

THIRD ACCUSED ACQUITTED After a retirement of nearly three hours, a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday found Derek Henry Read, aged 29. a farmer, and Robert Lancaster Fairweather, aged 44, a private inquiry agent, guilty on a charge that they conspired together at Ashburton on January 24 to pervert or defeat the course of justice. The jury found Percy Henry Read, aged 55, a retired farmer, not guilty on the charge of conspiring with the other two accused. Mr Justice McGregor discharged Percy Read, and remanded Derek Read and Fairweather for sentence. The hearing of the case began on Wednesday. Mr A. W. Brown appeared for the Crown. Mr R. W. Edgley appeared for Derek Read; Mr J. G. Leggat for Fairweather; and Mr T. A. Gresson and Mr B. McClelland for Percy Read. Mr Leggat, addressing the jury yesterday. said Fairweather had been painted as some monster who had perpetrated a hideous and cruel frameup, but there was not the slightest evidence to support that description by the Crown prosecutor. When this matter caused the police to make investigations, Fairweather could have been expected to fade into the night and suddenly disappear, but he sent the police a message asking if they wanted to see him and he stood his ground.

An agreement to commit adultery was not any crime against the course of justice, said Mr Leggat. Tait had said a plan was made at the pie cart in Ashburton. He said they agreed they were to catch Fairweather and Mrs Read in the act of intercourse. Fairweather agreed to be caught in adultery and the two Reads and Tait agreed to catch him. That was all there was to it, as Tait had made quite clean That was not a crime against the course of justice. The alleged false affidavits by Derek Read might in themselves be bad but they had nothing to do.with the specific charge now before the Court and were not related to the agreement made at the pie cart iq Ashburton.

“No Evidence of Conspiracy” Mr Edgley told the jury that the three men would not be in the dock if it had not been for domestic trouble between Derek Read and his wife. When Derek Read burst into the hotel bedroom and saw the state of affairs he would believe what Tait implicity believed had happened, and that was that adultery had taken place. There was no contact between Derek Read and Fairweather after January 24. Other steps taken by Derek Read for divorce might be the subject of other proceedings but that was not evidence of a conspiracy with Fairweather, said Mr Edgley. The jury might feel that this was a very shoddy affair and reflected no credit on the Reads and Fairweather or, indeed, on Mrs Read, and that the three accused should be punished, but that was not the function of the jury. Their function was to decide on the evidence whether there had been a conspiracy between two or more persons. Counsel submitted that there was no evidence of any conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Judge Sums Up “The charge is of a most serious nature because any attempt to interfere with justice really strikes at the roots of our society,” said his Honour, summing up. Before the jury could convict any one of the accused they must be satisfied that there was an agreement and that the agreement was an unlawful one. A conspiracy was an agreement between two or more persons to carry out a common design or purpose. In law, if there was a wrongful agreement Tait was a party to it and in law an accomplice. A jury was always warned that it was unsafe to convict an accused on the Uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice though it was open to them to do so.

His Honour reviewed Tait’s evidence and said there were several matters which might throw light on the agreement. Fairweather was going under an assumed name, though that was not a crime. Before the pie cart episode Fairweather had a room pencilled in at the Devon Hotel and at some stage in the evening he went along and signed the register R. Nicolls. When he went to Rickard’s house, where Mfrs Read was living, he gave his name as Bob Nicolls. He also signed the confession R. Nicolls, and the jury must remember, in considering the confession and what was happening there, that Derek Read told Constable Rose he did not know Nicolls, and that two witnesses had given evidence of an earlier association in Dunedin between Derek Read and Fairweather. Derek Read knew that R. Nicolls was really Fairweather. Payment of Hotel Account Other matters which the jury might consider were that after the episode in the bedroom Fairweather disappeared from the hotel. That might have been the natural flight of an adulterer or it might be a disappearance for another reason. Then there was the action of Derek Read going to the Devon Hotel on the morning of January 25 and paying Bob Nicolls’s account. Did a wronged husband usually go along and pay the adulterer’s hotel bill?

A man’s intention or purpose was sometimes disclosed by his subsequent acts, said his Honour. There was the affidavit sworn by Derek Read on March 27 to support a motion to dispense with R. Nicolls as co-respondent m the divorce suit. In this affidavit Derek Read declared that R. Nicolls was a complete stranger to him. It also said that Derek Read and Tait went to Dunedin and unsuccessfully tried to locate R. Nicolls. It was a matter for the jury to consider whether those things threw any light on the agreement made at the pie cart in Ashburton.

One counsel had mentioned a vague suggestion of drugging. The jury could dismiss it from their minds. There was no evidence at all on it and it could not be given any credence. If the jury decided there was an agreement they would then consider what they took to be the object of the agreement, said his Honour. The jury might think that the real purpose of the agreement was to do something so that Derek Read could divorce hie wife. The agreement might have been one to almost fake a tale of intercourse that had never taken place, in which case the jury would have to consider if it was intended to mislead the Supreme Court. If on the other hand the agreement was that Fairweather actually should commit adultery; was it for the purpose of obtaining evidence for divorce? If a husband connived at his wife’s adultery and that fact came to the knowledge of the Court, the Court would refuse a divorce. If the agreement was such, was the real purpose behind it to mislead the Court into granting a divorce? Derek Read had also sworn another affidavit saying there had been no collusion or connivance. Counsel had made reference to the character of Mrs Read, but that wai not a matter for the jury, his Honour said. Mrs Read was not a party to the case and was not present to defend herself.

His Honour said that if the Jury found two of the accused not guilty, they must find the third not guilty because there must be at least two persons in a conspiracy. The jury retired at 11.45 a.m. and returned at 2.35 p.m. with their verdicts of guilty against Derek Read and Fairweather, and not guilty against Percy Read.