Supreme Court Complainant's Father Gives Evidence In Assault Trial

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29370, 24 November 1960, Page 3

Supreme Court Complainant's Father Gives Evidence In Assault Trial

The only thing that he could recognise about his 21-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, when he visited her in July this year at Burwood Hospital was her voice, the girl’s father, Stanley Ravenswood, said in the Supreme Court yesterday. Her lip and ears were twisted and-her nose flattened, he said. Ravenswood was giving evidence for the prosecution in the trial of Raey Catherine Mary Bell,, aged 30, mother of-five children, who pleads not guilty to three charges of assaulting Elizabeth Ravenswood so as to cause her actual bodily harm, and three of assaulting the girl while she was her servant at Kaikoura between June 1, 1958, and June 1, 1960. The trial, before Mr Justice Richmond, will enter its fourth day today when evidence for the Crown is expected to conclude.

The hearing yesterday was attended by more than 100 spectators including more than 80 women and two secondary schoolgirls.

The Crown Prosecutor (Mr P. T. Mahon) is conducting the case for the Crown. Mr W. F. Brown, with him Mr G. T. Mahon, appears for Bell. Cross-examined by Mr Brown when the trial resumed in the morning, Elizabeth Ravenswood admitted telling untruths while at the Bells between 1957 and 1960. She said she told lies on several occasions. Ravenswood read out the following note she said she had written several months ago at Bells: “On many occasions I have stolen food in this home. On each occasion I have lied about it. I have lied many, many times. I lied 18 times today about food I stole last week while Mrs Bell was away.—l inspected Mrs Bell’s suitcase and an expensive shoe was lost.”

Ravenswood denied that this note was left somewhere in the house for the accused to pick up. She wrote it at the kitchen table. It ■was not true. Accused told her to write it.

Ravenswood agreed with Mr Brown that when she went to Burwood Hospital she had no intention whatsoever of making complaints about accused. She was questioned for a long time. Certain things were put to her by certain people and she agreed with them. Re-examination Re-examined by Mr Mahon, Ravenswood said the words in the note about her lying were not her own words. They were dictated to her by accused. Accused did not punish her. Blood on the note must have come from a sore finger Ravenswood had. 1 “Mrs Bell did not tell me why she wanted the note about telling lies or the note about stealing housekeeping money,” Ravenswood said.

She said accused often talked about other girls who had worked for her. “She said she wished she could have one or two of the girls back and wished I was like them.”

Ravenswood said while she was in Burwood Hospital the accused wrote letters to her several times. She gave them to Detective-Ser-

geant Hollingshead. “Dr. Milliken asked me questions about how I came about my injuries. I did not tell him the first time, I told him in the end. I remember the first police officer coming to the hospital. I told him the truth. “I told lies about my injuries

at different times to different people. I did not want to get Mrs Bell into trouble. “If anyone inquired about the sticking plaster on my top lip when I was at Kaikoura I did not tell them it was stitched. I said it was a boil. This was Mrs Bell’s idea. I told people my black eye came from banging into a door. This was Mrs Bell’s idea,” Ravenswood said to further questions by the prosecutor. Ravenswood identified photographs taken of herself at her sister’s wedding in late 1955, at Mount Magdala in 1956, and at a dance at Burnham after her seventeenth birthday. An exercise book produced contained a list of breakages of household crockery, kept by accused. Ravenswood said she had never seen the book until accused brought it to her at the hospital a month after she (witness) had entered Burwood. Accused spoke so fast and flipped the pages over so quickly witness could not understand what it was about. Mr Mahon: Thinking back over the three years at Mrs Bell’s, do you think you could have broken £lBl worth of crockery and so on, Betty? Ravenswood: Definitely not.

To Mr Brown, Ravenswood admitted she had seen a small notebook (produced) at Kaikoura. The exercise book full of breakages and costs debited to her by accused appeared to have been written up from items in the notebook. Police Photographs Constable W. McD. Ramage, police photographer, produced three photographs of Ravenswood he took while she was at Burwood Hospital on July 6. Witness also produced a reorodiucition of a nhotogranh of Ravenswood a long time before she went fo the hos-' nital. These photographs were handed to the jury made up in booklets of the four photographs. Witness also produced an enlargement of Ravenswood’s head and ear. taken from the photograph produced earlier of Ravenswood as bridesmaid =+ the wedding of her sister in 1955. His Honour said he admitted these two photos, the wedding one and enlargement showing the ear. »s the defence had shown that the matter of Ravenswood’s ears before she went to Kaikoura the second time was to be of some importance in the trial. Thomas William Milliken, a

plastic surgeon, described the ulcers on Ravenswood's legs when she entered Burwood Hospital on June 9.

Milliken said he had asked the girl about the history of the injuries. She was in very poor condition and timid and reluctant to talk, but brightened up after about 10 days.

Ravenswood told him the ulcers on her legs were caused by a trellis falling on them; the laceration on her chin was due to a fall from a stool; the laceration on her upper lip by a blow on the lip just before Christmas, 1959, _ and was stitched on the same day; small scars in the back of her head were due to falls; the fracture of her ribs were due to a kick in the side of the chest.

Ravenswood had no explanation to offer for having a needle in her back. The damage to ears was caused by repeated blows the girl told him, and the scars on her lower lip were due to a carbuncle infection. Cause Of Scar “In my opinion, the linear scar on the lower lip was unlikely to be caused by a carbuncle. The stitches in the top lip were not properly aligned, distorting the lip. One of the ears was so swollen it was impossible to see into the opening,” said witness. He operated on the girl four times, witness said, excising large bumps from the front of her ears and re-aligning the scar on her upper lip. The structure of the ears had been so destroyed as to make it impossible to restore the ears to normal.

Milliken said that two of the four photographs handed to the jury “truly represented” her as she was before he operated on her ears and lip. The third photograph was of the girl after her operations. Cross-examined by Mr Brown, witness said one kick could break six ribs. Falls could also break ribs. He did not think the scar on the lower lip could have been caused by a carbuncle. He did not think the injury on the upper lip was due to a carbuncle and infection. In his experience a carbuncle could not be stitched. Witness said he would not agree with the view to be expressed by Dr. Roy and Dr. Ardagh, for the defence, that the upper Inp injury could have been caused by a carbuncle or that the stitching did not distort the lip. Ravenswood, while not knowing how the needle got in her back, had mentioned being “chased with a needle” when “tardy” with her work.

Cross-examined at length, Milliken said Ravenswood first told him her chin and upper lip injuries were due to boils. Ravenswood had not complained to him about Mrs Bell or being struck over; the first 10 days. Witness doubted her answers from what Ravens-

wood told the nursing staff. Treated Complainant Geoffrey Donald Gordon said be was a medical practitioner at Kaikoura. He treated Ravenswood for a carbuncle on her chin in August, 1959. He attended the girl again on June 8 last for two ulcers on her legs and sent her to Burwood Hospital.

Witness said he lived about 200 yards from the Bells. The hospital would be between 50 and 100 yards .from the Bells. From 1957 to 1960 he had been called to the Bells home to treat the children for cuts and minor ailments.

He had always regarded the accused as a very reputable person, Gordon told Mr Brown. He had delivered three or four of Mrs Bell’s children. She was of normal temperament and was a good mother. There had been boils and carbuncles in the Bell home and he had treated Mr Bell for‘a boil.

Witness agreed that carbuncles if caused by infection could cause a person to become run down. Haydn Louis Hope, a linesman, said he lived at 12 Takahanga terrace and was a next-door neighbour of Bell’s. The Bells were good neighbours. Ravenswood was a bright, normal girl but became thin and timid towards the end of last year. On one occasion he noticed she had a cauliflower ear. She wore a scarf qver her head. It was late last year. About. December last, he noticed Ravenswood hanging out clothes. Accused came out and seemed very angry, and Betty denied what she was accused of.

“Accused said: ‘But you did. You did.’ Accused then hit Betty with her open hand on the shoulder. I made my presence known." Heard Commotion Early this year witness said he heard a commotion in the Bells’ kitchen. He heard accused say something like “you stand there. You’ve got a nerve," and then the sound of what appeared to be blows. On an evening this year Hope said he saw accused trying to make Betty look in a mirror. Betty would not and accused took hold of her and kept trying to make her. It sounded as thought there was an argument. Hope said he and his wife noticed Betty’s condition steadily deteriorating from the latter part of 1959. They talked it over and decided to approach an Anglican Minister. They saw him in February but found he was not the welfare officer in Kaikoura, only the child welfare officer. To Mr Brown, Hope said he had always got on well with the Bells. Hope’s wife, Jessie Lorraine Hope, confirmed his evidence. She said she noticed what appeared to be a graze mark on Betty’s face near a lip. Accused told witness that “Betty had been scratched by a wild cat.” Witness said she noticed Betty’s ears swollen. Betty said she must be getting another boil. On three occasions she heard accused getting angry with Betty and some commotion. To Mr Brown, witness said the Bells had always been friendly neighbours. The families babysat for each other. Betty quite frequently wore a scarf on her head. Father’s Evidence The father of the girl complainant, Stanley Ravenswood, a labourer, of 4 Pomare crescent. Upper Hutt, said his wife died some time after Betty went first to Kaikoura. This was in April,' 1955. He «aw Betty at Bells

after she had had her baby. He saw her again when she was at Calvary Hospital and at Mount Magdala. Ravenswood said he was living in Christchurch then. He then went back to Upper Hutt. He wrote to Betty both times she was at Bells and she wrote to him. She had no facial disfigurements whatsoever before she went to Bells. The photograph of Betty at her sister’s wedding was a true likeness of Betty at that time—date, 1955. He visited Betty at Burwood Hospital in July this year. Mr Mahon; Did you notice any change in her. Ravenswood: I only recognised her voice.

Are these photographs (produced) what she was like in hospital?—Yes.

Were those scars on her face and ears?—Yes. Was her nose like that?—Yes. flattened. To Mr G. T. Mahon, Ravenswood said he got on very well witli Betty, like any normal father. He was very upset and angry when Betty became pregnant. He did not chastise her. He coaxed her to tell him. He did not know how many youths were involved. He did not know if his first wife had told the child welfare people about Betty’s pregnancy He had a lot of trouble during Betty’s confinement and could not be in Wellington and Kaikoura at the same time, so did not visit her.

Mr Mahon: Mrs Bell will say she was not away from home at the time you say you called at Kaikoura. Ravenswood: Well, she must have been hiding in the coal scuttle.

Mrs Bell will say you did not call at their house. What do you say to that?—She would be a stranger to the truth. Ravenswood said accused would be lying if she said he refused to speak to Betty when accused telephoned from Kaikoura after his first wife died. Ravenswood said the Mother Superior at Calvary Hospital told him Betty tended to get into rough company. Mount Magdala would be good for Betty. She would learn a trade. He said he did not know the date of Betty’s birthday. It was not until a few days ago that he knew she had turned 21. Ravenswood denied he had shown a “remarkable lack of interest in his daughter.” He agreed that if Betty had asked the Bells to adopt her, that would be a strange thing. Cross-examined at length. Ravenswood said Betty .had perfectly normal ears. They were small ears but not at all abnormal. . Mr G. T. Mahon: You visited Betty several times In the week you saw her in Burwood. Ravenswood: Yes.

You would have seen Betty more in that week than you did in the three years she was at Kaikoura?—lt took me about a week to recognise points I had known about Betty before she went to Kaikoura. . . .

Answer my question.—Yes, I would see her more that week than in the previous three years. Elizabeth Couttie, married and the aunt of the complainant, said Betty had no facial disfigurement whatsoever when she left for Kaikoura in 1957. Her ears were as in the photograph produced, perfectly normal.