Appeal On Conviction In Kaikoura Case Upheld

Press, Volume C, Issue 29444, 21 February 1961, Page 15

Appeal On Conviction In Kaikoura Case Upheld

Racy Catherine Mary Bell, a married woman, of Kaikoura, was released from Paparua Prison yesterday after the Court of Appeal had upheld her appeal against conviction. Bell was convicted last year on a charge of assaulting Elizabeth Ravenswood, then aged 21, so as to cause her actual bodily harm by striking her a blow causing a lacerated wound of the upper lip, at Kaikoura on or about March 1, 1960, when Ravenswood was Bell’s domestic servant.

Bell was serving a sentence of four months’ Imprisonment imposed on her by Mr,Justice Richmond on December 2, 1960. A jury in the Supreme Court at Christchurch, after a ntoe-day trial, had found Bell guilty on this count, and also guilty on three counts of common assault, by stitching the wound on Ravenswood's lip, thrashing her with a stick and thrashing her with a belt. The jury acquitted Bell on a charge of assaulting Ravenswood so as to cause her actual bedily harm, by striking her so as to cause gross deformity of both ears, and kicking her so as to fracture six ribs. Mr Justice Richmond sentenced Bell to one month’s imprisonment on each of the three charges of common assault, to be served concurrently with the four months’ sentence imposed on the major charge on which she was found guilty. Bell appealed on all four counts on which she had been found guilty. She appealed against conviction but not against sentence. The Court of Appeal, in its judgment delivered yesterday, upheld Bell’s appeal against conviction on the charge of common assault by stitching Ravenswood's lip, but dismissed the appeals against conviction on the charges of common assault by thrashing Ravenswood with a stick and with a belt The Court of Appeal quashed the sentences imposed on Bell on these two last charges. As Bell had elected to remain in custody pending her appeal, the Court held it unnecessary to impose any penalty in substitution for the sentences quashed, with the result that she was discharged without penalty by order of the Court. At the bearing on February 13 and 14, the Court of Appeal comprised Mr Justice Gresson, president, Mr Justice North, and Mr Justice Cleary. Mr W. F. Brown, with him Mr G. T Mahon, appeared for Bell, and Mr R. C. Savage for the Crown. Unreliable Witness” The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice North, says that the Court, after carefully considering the evidence of Ravenswood at the trial, was left with the clear conviction that she proved to be a “most unreliable witness and indeed, on a number of occasions, it is quite obvious that she was untruthful, particularly in respect of collateral matters. ■There was clear evidence that she had visited Blenheim and had been entertained - there front time to time. On any view of her evidence, she was plainly a girl very susceptible to outside influence.” The judgment continues that the Court considered the jury must have reached the conclusion that it would accept substantially the evidence of Betty (Ravenswood) with all its deficiencies. ’’lf the matter had rested there, while we would have been very uneasy about the verdict of the jury, we might well have been disposed to have accepted Mr Savage’s submission that the verdict of the jury should not be disturbed seeing it was for them to determine questions erf credibility.” The judgment says that the Court did not feel able to go to the length of saying that the jury was inconsistent in acquitting Bell on the charges of causing Ravenswood gross deformity of the ears and fractures of the ribs, as the medical evidence was not wholly in support of these charges. Medical witnesee brought by the Crown were divided in their opinions "Even so. we find ourselves unable wholly to exelude from our minds that Betty’s evi-

donee in respect of these two matters was far from satisfactory. . . We turn to discuss several other matters which have caused us concern. Complainant’s Letters “The first of these is the nature of the correspondence put in at the trial. All of the letters of Betty to the appellant are expressed to affectionate terms without a single word of complaint “We can understand that the whackings or thrashings, which the appellant admits she administered to Betty, to the circumstances in which they were administered would not have destroyed Betty’s affection for the appellant, but we find it very difficult indeed to believe that she would have written to- the appellant and to others in the way she did if the serious results now alleged against the appellant had been committed. "It requires to be mentioned that the letters written from Burwood Hospital were sent at a time when any previous domination the appellant may have exercised over Betty had ceased."

The judgment says that some of the evidence which the learned judge admitted regarded incidents not the subject of charges must, in the very unusual nature of the case, have proved most prejudicial to the appellant The medical evidence of the finding a needle in Betty’s back was referred to particularly. Evidence On Needle

“It was not alleged that this needle was due to any act by the appellant but when Betty, quite unexpectedly, in the course of cross-examination, made f6r‘ the first time an allegation that the appellant had on one occasion threatened her with an ‘electric needle.’ we cannot help thinking the evidence relating to the finding of the needle was likely to assume a sinister aspect.

“We think, too, that it was unfortunate that the police would not permit the doctor engaged by the defence to ask Betty any questions in the course of the examination he was permitted to carry out. In the nature of things, a doctor examining a patient requires to get information from the patient before he is in a position to interpret the results of his clinical examination.’’

The judgment said the one factor which had caused the

Court to hesitate in respect of the charge of causing Ravenswood a lacerated wound of the upper lip was that the appellsint admitted she had inserted a stitch in the girl’s upper Up. Unwise And Unusual” "This was a most unwise and unusual happening, but having given this aspect of the matter most careful consideration, we do not think that to the circumstances the stitching of the girl’s Up is sufficient to justify our taking the view that this action on the part of the appellant was incompatible with innocence. “We think it sufficient to say that, having regard to the patent unreliability of Betty’s testimony ,to the evidence that she was in fact suffering from a carbuncle at the relevant time, and to the inconclusiveness of the medical evidence, this is a case in which the conviction of the count of assault causing actual bodily harm by causing a lacerated wound cannot be allowed to stand,” The Court in its judgment held that this conviction being quashed the conviction of common assault by stitching the lip must also be quashed. “If the split lip was occasioned by a carbuncle which burst, then however imprudent and unwise the action of the appellant was it cannot be said that she assaulted Betty by inserting the stitch, for Betty in evidence said she consented to the appellant inserting the stitch.” In holding that the convictions for common assault by thrashing Betty with a stick and with a belt must stand, the judgment said: “Even granting that Betty felt the appellant was in the position of a mother to her (and we think it was this circumstance which caused Betty to regard the appellant’s action as being justified, for undoubtedly she had behaved rather badly on the occasions when the appellant administered something in the nature of a thrashing), the administering of corporal punishment to a girl then nearly 21 years old was very unusual and, in our opinion, the jury were quite entitled to say that the appellant’s action was unjustified.”

The Court held that convictions on these two charges of common assault alone did not warrant imprisonment