Jury Disagrees For Third Time

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29908, 23 August 1962, Page 12

Jury Disagrees For Third Time

(From Out Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, August 22. After a retirement of. four hours 20 minutes, a jury in the Supreme Court at Grevmouth this evening failed to agree in a charge against Charles Wallace Crone, aged 42, a drainlayer, of Lincoln road, Christchurch, of breaking and entering the Runanga Cooperative Society store on March 30. It was his third trial on the charge and a fourth has been ordered.

In answer to Mr Justice Macarthur, who was on the bench, the foreman of the jury said there was no possibility of an agreement being reached. His Honour then discharged the jury and ordered a new trial to begin in Greymouth on Monday September 10 The first two trials were heard in Grey mouth before Mr Justice Richmond. Both times the jury failed to agree after deliberating the ma imum permissible time of six hours, under the Justice Act of 1908

After considering an application for bail in chambers, his Honour granted it at £lOO on Crone’s own recognisance with the stipulation that he report once a week to the police at 730 p m each Friday. Witness Recalled

One Crown witness. Detec-tive-Sergeant S B McEwen of Greymouth, was recalled today to give evidence in rebuttal of that given by Crone’s wife He said that when he interviewed Mrs Crone in Christchurch on the night of April 5 and showed her the coat, trousers and shoes found in a car in Runanga. she said that the coat and trousers were her husbands, but she was not sure about the shoes On each of the three times she gave evidence. Mrs Crone has denied that she identified the coat and trousers, but said that the shoes could be her husband’s In his address to the jury M. R G Blunt, who appeared for Crone, emphasised that the Crown evidence had failed

to prove that Crone was ever in Runanga. Although the jury might be convinced that someone did blow the safe at Runanga, it still had to be convinced that Crone was in Runanga at the time.

The Crown Solicitor (Mr D J. Tucker) said the case seemed to have resolved itself into a contest between the accused on the one hand and two Crown witnesses. Bernard James Cummins and John Albert Arthur, on the other He suggested that when Crone read of the crime, he could well have gone to the police and accounted for his whereabouts at the time. He had nothing to fear if his story of his return to Christchurch from Culverden were true. Instead he now introduced two untraceable men. •‘Bert" and Fitzwilliams.

Summing up, his Honour said the jury would have to decide which witnesses were telling the truth and which inferences were reasonable ones Suspicion was not sufficient to uphold a conviction Anyone acting as a lookout could be regarded as an accomplice. For that reason they would have to weigh Cummins's evidence very carefully. Arthur was a selfconfessed accomplice. “If the matter rested with me. I would undoubtedly treat Cummins as an accomplice. but that is a matter for you to decide.” said his Honour. “You may come to the conclusion that you regard both Cummins and Arthur as accomplices You may still convict on their evidence, but I warn you of the danger of it,” he added.