MURDER CHARGE AT AUCKLAND

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27750, 30 August 1955, Page 3

MURDER CHARGE AT AUCKLAND

Lower Court Hearing Begins

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, August 29. Fifteen witnesses gave evidence today, when a charge of murder against Albert Laurence Black, aged 20. a labourer, was heard in the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland. Five more witnesses will be called tomorrow. Black is charged with the murder of Allan Keith Jacques, aged 19, who was stabbed in the neck in Ye Olde Bam Cafe, in Queen street, Auckland, about #.15 p.m. on July 26. Mr G. S. R. Meredith, with him Mr G. D. Speight, appear for the Crown. Mr R. K. Davidson, with him Mr P. G. Hillyer, represent Black. Mr W. S. Spence, S.M., is on the Bench.

A 16-year-old typist described attending a party at Biack’s house in Wellesley street West the night before Jacques was killed. An application was made for the suppression of the girl’s name. This was granted after the Magistrate had heard her evidence. He later suppressed the names of two other girl witnesses. The witness said she knew Black as “Paddy” and had known Jacques for not more than a fortnight. She had not kept company with either youth. J On Monday, July 25, she went to Ye Olde Barn Cafe about 7.30 or 8 p.m. after attending a film. She met “Paddy” by accident at the cafe, and he asked her to a party at his house in Wellesley street. She said she agreed to go, but went home I first, and slipped out about 10.30 p.m. i without the people at home knowing she was going. About nine persons—men and girls —were at the party, including Jacques, whom she knew as ’ Johnny McBride.” There was beer and a bottle of spirits at the party. She said “Paddy” suggested she should sleep with him that night. She said “no” and he asked her again. She said she would think it over, but she would not be able to stay the

whole night. She said that at one stage during the party she went to the back of the house with another girl. This was about 11.15 p.m. On their way back to the house “Johny Mcßride” came out and met them on the back steps. The three talked for a. little while, but later the other girl went inside. She and “Johnny” went' around the side of the house, where they were talking about another girl when “Paddy” came out and told them to go inside. ‘ ‘He wanted to know what we were doing,” she said. “We both told him we were talking. He didn’t believe us and told ‘Johnny’ to get inside with his own girl.” Fight Begins

She said “Johnny” had kissed her once before “Paddy” came out. She said “Johnny” did not go inside. The youths began calling each other names and began fighting. She did not know who* struck the first blow. She went inside to get the others and the boys there broke up the fight. “Paddy” and “Johnny” were not friendly afterwards. “One of the others suggested that they shake hands,” she said. “ ‘Paddy’ didn’t do anything, but ‘Johnny’ wouldn’t shake hands. ‘Paddy’ told ‘Johnny’ to come back next morning and finish the fight.” The girl said “Paddy” had a cut on the eye afterwards. She thought he had it before, but it had been reopened. She said that after this fight “Paddy” began fighting with another boy, Colin, with the others trying to break them up. “ ‘Paddy’ and Colin kept fighting and everyone followed them outside the front gate on to the footpath. ‘Johnny Mcßride’ was mixed up in it, too,” she said.

As far as she knew they only used their-fists. She did not know how the fight finished as she had got into a car which had come to pick up some of the girls to take them home. “While I was in the car ‘Paddy’ called out to me and I told Dave, the , driver of the car, to start the car,” she said. “Then ‘Paddy’ opened the door and made me get out. The others stayed in the cat.

“After I got out I went inside with Ted Quinta], his brother, another girl/ jand “After we went into the front room, I ‘Paddy’ chased everybody else out except me. He then asked me if I was going to stay with him and I told him that I wanted to go home. “I started to pick up the broken beer bottles in the room.” She said she put the bottles and glasses into a beer carton along with a knife. She could not say whether the knife was the one produced in Court, but it looked “something like it.” “ ‘Paddy’ had taken the knife from one of the drawers just after everyone else had left the room. He had started looking through the drawers and after he took the knife out he threw it on the floor,” she said. “Paddy” had said he “should have found it before.” “While we were in the room ’Paddy’ asked me to pass him a mirror,” she said. “The mirror was hanging on the wall. He looked at his face to see how badly it was hurt and then threw it on the floor and it broke. “Going Kill ’Johnny’*’ “I asked him if I could go home. He said he was going to kill ‘Johnny’ the next day. I asked him how and he said he didn’t know. He said he might strangle him or knife him.

“I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just joking. I told him not to be silly and that he didn’t mean it. He said he did mean it and that the next time I saw him he would be in gaol.” She said she did not stay long after that. There was a suggestion that she go home in a taxi. One of the other girls had taken her purse and she had nc money. “Paddy’ 1 had lent her 10s and. she had told him she would give it back to him the next day. “He said he wouldn’t want it the next day because he would be in gaol. He said a doctor had only given him a year to live. I told him that if he murdered ‘Johnny’ he would get hung and it wouldn’t be worth-while. He said it didn’t matter as he was only going to live a year anyway.” She said “Paddy” had walked up the street with her to the corner and she had then walked .on by herself and got a taxi and went home. She said she was not at Ye Olde Barn Cafe the next day. A 15-year-old girl said she was with the previous witness when they left the house at the party. “Johnny” came out of the house and kissed her (witness) and she. went inside. She described how she next saw

“Johnny” and “Paddy” fighting and then later the fight between “Paddy” and Colin. As .she was leaving .about midnight there was a fight on the footpath. She said she saw “Paddy” come out an dhe “took to ‘Johnny’.” “I saw ‘Johnny’ kick him, ‘Paddy’ more or less doubled over . . . ‘Paddy’ started the fight,” she said. She added that the other boys pulled the fighters apart. Afterward “Johnny” was quiet, but “Paddy” was rather Worked - ' up. The next witness, an 18-year-old typist, said a boy, “Pooch,” invited her to the party. She met “Johnny” at the gate and went in with him; Describing the first fight, she said she saw “Johnny” punch “Paddy” and “Paddy” doubled up.. ‘.‘We tried to get them back inside. We couldn’t for a while,” she said. “I heard them both agree to have a fight next day. I tried to get them to shake hands, but was not success-

ful,’’ she said. She said that after the fight it was “peaceful for a while.” “ ‘Paddy* lay .on the bed and then the boy Colin went over to him.

‘Paddy* was saying he would get ‘Johnny’ with a broken glass, or something like that,” she said. “Colin, who I think was pretty drunk, said not to use glass. I think, though I am not sure, Colin said something about a knife. He was pretty drunk. “ ‘Paddy’ sprang up in a bit of a temper, breaking glasses and throwing things around.” She - said she left about 11.45 p.m. with two others. She did not see any fight on the footpath. Rainton James Hastie, a presser, said he saw “Paddy” in a hotel about 5 p.m. on July 25. He had a few drinks with him, and “Paddy” had suggested a party to be held at his (“Paddy’s”) place. Hastie said he and another man called Colin had each bought some beer. He had gone out, coming back in a taxi to the hotel, and then gone to 105 Wellesley street. He left the party about 10 p.m. and went to pick up a couple of girls and to get some more beer.

Cut Above Eye When he returned to the party he noticed “Paddy” had a cut above the eye. “ ‘Paddy* was lying on the bed, and he called me over and asked me if I had a knife. I told him I didn’t. He then told me to go and get Colin.” Hastie said he had left the party later. M Colin Stanley Cameron, a printer, said he had left the party about 11 p.m., and was away for about 15 minutes. When he returned he noticed that both “Paddy” and “Johnny McBride” seemed “a bit heated up.” Cameron said Black had asked him for a knife. He (witness) had a pocket knife which he had been using earlier in the evening as a bottleopener. “I refused him. I then had a

slight altercation with him. I was not sober at the time. I left a.little later by myself.” Cameron said that next day, with Black and two others, he went to Ye Olde Barn cafe for tea about 6 p.m. He sat in the far cubicle on the right, side of the cafe. The accused walked in and sat at the first cubicle facing them. Cameron said he walked down to the accused and offered him a cigarette. He then walked out of the cafe, and when he returned he found a crowd gathered, and could not get back inside. As far as he knew, the accused did not speak to Jacques in the cafe. Michael lan Cooke Sinclair, an armature winder, said he attended the party at 105 Wellesley street. He saw the fight, after which Black said: “I’ll get ‘Johnny’ if it’s the last thing I do.” It was agreed to finish the fight the next morning about 8 o’clock. “Johnny” was fairly sober, but “Paddy” was “pretty far gone,” he said. *

Next evening, said Sinclair, he was in the cafe. The accused was sitting next to him in a cubicle. Black had been drinking, but did not appear to be drunk.

“Knifed Above Collar”

“I did not see ‘Johnny’ until it happened,” said the witness. “‘Paddy’ stood, turned around and took one step to ‘Johnny.’ He raised his arm and stuck his knife into ‘Johnny’s’ neck. ‘Johnny’ was looking over the juke box, bending forward. I saw ‘Paddy’s’ arm in the air. ‘Paddy’ knifed ‘Johnny’ just above his collar and slightly to the right. When stabbed, ‘Johnny’ straightened up, turned slightly to his right, and collapsed on to his back. ‘“Paddy’ stepped back into the middle, of the back section of the cafe and said: ‘Go ahead and call the cops. I don’t care.’”

The witness said the accused walked out of the cafe, followed by another man. As far as the witness knew, Jacques neither hit nor spoke to the accused In the cafe on the night of the stabbing. Edward Louis Quintal, a presser, said Black hit Jacques on the back of the neck. “I heard a click, a dull thud, and he fell back and hit his head on part of the cubicle,” the witness said. “I Have Killed Him” William James Lawson, a driver, said ?£ w® B in the cafe on the night oi the killing and saw the accused hi; Jacques on the back of the neck. He saw nothing in the accused’s hand Black walked toward the door and the witness followed, grabbing his arnr outside on the street. “He did not re sist and said: ‘I have killed him.' J told him he had not. but I did no' know Jacques had been stabbed,” said the witness. While he was standing in the street, someone came from the cafe and said Jacques had been stabbed and to get the police. The accused said he wanted to go up to the police station, and the witness went with him.

An ambulance driver, James Albert Tetley described being called to Ye Olde Barn Cafe about 6.15 p.m. on July 26. A man’s body lay about halfway down the cafe with the feet nearest to a juke box. The man lay on his right side, and a knife in the nape of the neck was buried up to,the

The man was unconscious and was taken to hospital. He had a pulse when he was picked up and put in the ambulance", but was dead when a doctor examined him in the casualty departmen. Dr. Francis John Cairns, a pathologist. said he examined the body of Jacques and found the knife had entered the head between the top of the spinal column and base of the skull, severing the spinal cord. From the blood and urine tests, he considered that at the time of his death Jacques was not drunk, the witness said.