SUPREME COURT Man Acquitted In 8 Minutes

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 10

SUPREME COURT Man Acquitted In 8 Minutes

An unsatisfactory explanation by Ronald Charles O’Connor, aged 38, a freezing worker, about his presence in a car in Bristol Street, St Albans, after midnight on August 9, a kit of alleged housebreaking tools in it, and a police dog’s track from the spot to a house at 101 Holly Road nearby, added up to “an irresistible inference” that O’Connor was the man who had attempted to burgle the Holly Road property an hour before, the Crown said in the Supreme Court yesterday.

But after an all-day hearing of the cate, a Jury took only eight minutes to find O’Connor (Mr P. G. S. Penlington) not guilty of attempted burglary, and not guilty on a second charge

of being a rogue and vagabond in that he had housebreaking implements in his possession. Mr Justice Wilson ordered that O’Connor be discharged. Evidence was given against O’Connor that after a young woman living at 101 Holly Road had been disturbed about 11 p.m. by somebody twice attempting to force her bedroom window as she lay in bed reading, the police were called, and noticed O’Connor, about 12.20 a.m., enter a car parked in Bristol Street, which had been kept under watch. Detective J. P. Bermingham gave evidence that a torch, gloves, and a tool kit, including glass-cutters, were found in O'Connor’s car, and that when questioned he said he had just taken a girlfriend home, having been talking to her on a street corner. He had said that he did not know her name or address, as he had only met her that night. Of the tool kit, Detective Bermingham said he would not expect to find glasscutters, a saw blade, and a wood-boring tool in a motorist’s kit—but to his Honour, after a question put on behalf of the jury, said that the glass-cutters were part of the original kit, manufactured in West Germany and assembled in Australia.

Constable K. M. Gallagher gave evidence that his police dog Gem—said to be the best tracker dog in New Zealand —had followed a scent from O’Connor's car along Bristol Street, round the corner into Holly Road, and into a driveway and round the back of the property at 101 Holly Road, to a side veranda. Mr Penlington, addressing the jury after O’Connor had elected not to give evidence, said that the highest the Crown could put its case was “on suspicion,” and the nearest it could place O’Connor to the scene of the alleged crime was a quarter of a mile. The police, having seen O’Connor in Bristol Street, had “talked themselves into believing he was the right man.”

Mr Penlington said he answered the allegation about the housebreaking implements by resting on the Crown’s own evidence from Detective Bermingham, and said that the Crown was forced to rely on the evidence of a dog. Suspicion and vague assertions were not enough to support conviction under British justice, Mr Penlington said. The jury retired at 5.40 p.m., and reached a verdict of not guilty on both counts eight minutes later.