SUPREMECOURT Jury Finds Two Men Guilty Of Yaldhurst Hotel Assault

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31988, 15 May 1969, Page 6

SUPREME COURT Jury Finds Two Men Guilty Of Yaldhurst Hotel Assault

A jury In the Supreme Court yesterday found two young men guilty on a joint charge of assaulting, with intent to facilitate the crime of theft, Desmond Kenneth Burke, and his wife, Maureen Frances Burke, proprietors of the Yaldhurst Hotel, in their bedroom at the hotel on dr about March 12, last. The two accused, lan Nelson Benbow, aged 23, an unemployed chef, and Peter McDonald Allan, aged 20, a freezing worker, were each found guilty on two further charges of burglary, breaking and entering the Yaldhurst Hotel on March 12, and breaking and entering the Hunterville Hairdressing Salon on March 14.

The jury, of three women and nine , men, took 90 minutes to reach its Verdict Mr Justice Macarthur remanded both accused in custody for sentence on May 23.

The trial began on Monday. Mr A. D. Holland, with him Mr I. J. S. Reeves, represented the Crown. Mr Holland yesterday elected' not to make a final address. Submissions

Mr J. S. Bisphan submitted that the evidence against Benbow, apart from his statements to the police, cast only suspicion on him. Proof, beyond reasonable doubt not mere suspicion, was required before the jury could find Benbow guilty on any of the charges against him. Nobody had positively identified Benbow as being one of the two men who had entered the Yaldhurst Hotel and assaulted the licensee and his wife.

There were no witnesses of the burglary at Hunterville. Benbow had been in the hands of the police for 15 to 17 hours before making a statement He had made verbal statements to Auckland detectives and also to Detective Sergeant T. C. Joy, of Christchurch, and these statements differed, said Mr Bisphan. “The police must show that the statements made are accurate and given voluntarily. The statements differ—where does the truth lie? Was the

written statement made voluntarily after long questioning? I suggest that you give very little or no weight to the admissions allegedly made by Benbow.

. “The Crown has produced only suspicion against Benbow, and 1 ask you to return verdicts of not guilty on all the. charges against him,” Mr Bisphan said.

Mr W. A. Wilson said that the evidence against Allan was very thin. It amounted only to suspicion. Allan had made no written statement to the detectives. When Detective R. H. Criglington typed out a statement in Auckland, Allan had not only refused to sign it but had written “decline to sign” in the statement in the place where he had been invited to sign it as true and correct, counsel said. “The statement is not produced here. Detective Criglington swots it up and says it all here as what Allan allegedly confessed to him. It is a. confession by way of the back door after questioning a young man who did not know his own rights, was questioned, and I suggest

that no weight can be given to it at all. I suggest you ignore it,” Mr Wilson said. He said verdicts of not guilty should be returned on all charges against Allan because the Crown had not proved its case.

Both counsel and his Honour, in summing-up, emphasised that evidence against one of the accused, such as Benbow’s signed statement, could not be used against the other. Statements His Honour emphasised that unsworn statements, written or oral, made by accused persons to police officers were admissible, by law, as evidence—but only as evidence against the maker of the statements. If a statement was written down and signed by the accused person making it, then this bolstered the Crown case in that the Crown could say that there was no mistake—it was put down in writing and signed. But oral statements were also admissible and a jury could give such weight as it chose to them. His Honour said that in view of the very “serious accusation” made by counsel

for Allan against Detective Criglington he should recall what the detective had said in evidence and in crossexamination. Detective Criglington had said he questioned Allan at 9 p.m. and began taking a statement from him at 9.15 p.m. The detective had said that Allan had told him he was willing to make a statement so that he had no reason to think Allan would not sign it. Detective Criglington had said that what was in the statement was what Allan had told him in the interview. “Of course, the detective expected to produce the statement in Court. He said, in cross-examination, that Allan gave as a reason for declining to sign it, the fact that it would be detrimental to his case.” His Honour said that counself for Allan had suggested to the jury, to nut it bluntly, that Detective Criglington had lied in the witness box and had sought to get the jury to accept evidence that was not true. If the jury accepted as true what the detective said Allan had told him, then that was evidence against Allan.