VERDICT OF GUILTY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29363, 16 November 1960, Page 22

VERDICT OF GUILTY

Indecent Assault Charge

A jury in the Supreme Court yesteidriy found John Evan*, aged 25, a painter and paperhanger, guilty. on a charge of indecently assaulting a 17-year-old youth in a flat in Bealey avenue on the night of July 14. last Mr Justice Macarthur remanded Evans in custody for sentence on Friday. The jury took 115 minutes to reach its verdict

Mr C. Mf Roper conducted the case for the Crown and Mr G, S. Brockett appeared for Evans. Concluding evidence for the Crown was given when the trial resumed yesterday morning. Mr Brockett called no evidence for the defence. The complainant < story of what happened was not corroborated in any way whatsoever. as the prosecutor had very fairly pointed out, said Mr Brockett

Evans had been interviewed that same night by two experienced detectives and had denied not only that he touched the youth indecently but also that he had touched the youth at all. "Here we have the story of a youth who was not quite 18 when the alleged assault took place. And I suggest to you very strongly that he has shown himself by his

evidence and demeanour in the witness box to be very unreliable. "You cannot convict Evan* on tile uncorroborated word of" this adolescent youth without fear of doing an injustice to Evans," Mr Brockett told the jury. Mi- Roper said the law was that it was dangerous to convict in sexual cases on uncorroborated evidence. In this case, there was tliat gap when both the 'complainant and Evans were in the flat and there was only the uncorroborated word of the complainant as to w-hat happened, and Evans’s denials in his statement to the police. However, the law said that a jury could convict without corroboration if it was satisfied as to the guilt of an accused person.

“Why did this youth run out into the street from Evans’s Rat? Why did he go to a perfectly strange woman’s place, knock on the door in the dead of night and ask to be let in to ring the police? "If the youth made up this story about being indecently assaulted, he made it up all on his own. It is not a case of two youths together concocting a story. Why would the youth make up such a story?

“If you accept the youth made up the story then that is the end of it I suggest to you that it is unlikely that he made up such a story.” Mr Roper concluded Summing-up, his Honour said there was no evidence corroborating the complainant’s story of the alleged assault In the circumstances. it would be dangerous for the jury to con met Evans. Nevertheless. it was competent for the jury to convict Evans if after careful consideration it considered this the proper course.