SUPREME COURT Appeal Against Conviction For Burglary Dismissed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31729, 12 July 1968, Page 8

SUPREME COURT Appeal Against Conviction For Burglary Dismissed

A man found guilty of burglary, in that he had acted as look-out while a 17-year-old companion broke into the North Avon Dairy, Richmond, on March 24, appealed unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court yesterday against his conviction.

The appellant, Trevor Desmond Gordon Garlick, aged 22 (Mr J. E. Butler)—who had been placed on probation for the offence—claimed before Mr Justice Macarthur that a statement he had made to the police should not have been admitted in evidence, alleging that its manner of taking had breached the Judges’ rules.

Had the statement not been admitted in evidence, Mr Butler said, then certain questions relative to its contents could not have been put to Garlick in cross-examination.

Certain of the passages in the statement, and questions in cross-examination, were referred to by Mr C. A. McVeigh, for the Crown. After pointing out that Garlick's presence at the scene of the burglary was not disputed, Mr McVeigh said that the magistrate had had only to decide whether Garlick knew his companion, a youth named Tranter, was going to commit a crime and whether Garlick then aided and abetted him. Passage In Statement

Mr McVeigh particularly referred to a passage in Garlick’s statement: “Dave said there was beer down the side of the dairy. He also told me It was an easy place to get into”—and to a question in cross-examination: You knew what he was going down there for?—Yes, be said he was going down for the beer. And to another question, said Mr McVeigh, Garlick had replied: “I don’t know why I was look-out for him. I suppose I was just led on.” His Honour said he could not conclude that the magistrate had been wrong to admit Garlick’s statement—and, in fact, the magistrate had given careful consideration as to whether there had been any impropriety or irregularity as to the taking of the statement.

The appellant’s main point had been that there had been "cross-examination” of him by a detective at a time when the appellant had regarded himself as in custody—“but I cannot see any evidence of there having been cross-examina-tion,” his Honour said.. The statement having been properly admitted, there was ample evidence for the magistrate to have convicted Garlick, his Honour said, and the appeal must be dismissed. Assault Against Wife His Honour also dismissed an appeal by a 26-year-old Invercargill freezing worker, Steve Tawhiti (Mr R. F. Powell), against a sentence of three months imprisonment for an assault against bis wife, in that he had produced a butcher’s knife and threatened to cut her throat. Mr Powell, conceding that Tawhiti had not a very attractive record, said that his present offence was not, as in the past, one against the police or the public but was a domestic assault for which three months Imprisonment was excessive.

His Honour noted that an Invercargill magistrate had imposed a sentence “to bring this man up with a round turn.” “It is time this man settled down,” said his Honour, "and this sentence might be the very thing to do that.

“It was the only appropriate sentence,” he said. Gaol For Incest A 15-year-Old girl complainant in an incest case, who had chewed gum while in the wit-ness-box, and was said to be difficult to control at home, seemed to have suffered “no irreparable harm” by her father’s offence against her, said counsel, Mr R. E. L. Greaves, in the Supreme Court yesterday. Mr Justice Macarthur said he could not for one moment accept counsel’s suggestion of dealing with the girl’s father by way of fine and placement on probation. “A charge of incest, involving a daughter of this man, is of such gravity that it demands a sentence of imprisonment,” his Honour said. The minimum sentence he could impose, said his Honour—having regard to the facts that the man was a first offender, and had a good work record—was two years imprisonment His Honour noted that, after the Supreme Court trial last week, the man had been found guilty on one charge of incest and acquitted on another. But the evidence showed there had been “a course of conduct” by the man towards his daughter (whose name his Honour had ordered suppressed). Mr Greaves had submitted that the man’s offence, although serious, was an isolated one—and that he had been sufficiently punished by having had to report daily to the police over the last four months. The case, Mr Greaves submitted, could be "adequately dealt with" by way of fine and probation. His Honour Interposed to say: “I cannot for one moment accept any suggestion of that kind in a case of this gravity.”