Appeal background

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 2

Appeal background

Giving the background to the appeal, his Honour said Detective Sergeant Lambert made a written application for a search warrant on September 16 last year. He swore out an information in the presence of the first respondent (the Magistrate) that he was satisfied that there were reasonable grounds to believe that there were written records of interviews with women seeking abortions by counsellors and registered medical practitioners, and other medical and clerical records.

He deposed that there were reasonable grounds to believe these would be evidence in support of the commission of the offence of "abortion.”

That application was accompanied by a deposition by the detective. To this deposition he exhibited a copy of the manual which he had received from Dr R. B. Hun-

ton (the clinic's director) on the occasion of his visit.

' He deposed, in particular, to the following matters: — “That between the opening of the centre on May 17, 1974, and August 30, 1974. some 447 pregnancies had been terminated at the centre by registered medical practioners using the method of vacuum aspiration. “That as a result of complications after the use of those procedures, seven females had been admitted to the National Women’s Hospital for treatment. "That he had confirmed with Dr R. Green, deputy head of the faculty of the post-graduate school of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Auckland and senior obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Women’s Hospital, Auckland, the contents of a statutory declaration previously made by

Dr Green . . . and that he had confirmed with a Mrs Nina Barry-Martin the contents of a declaration previously made by her . . .”

His Honour said that Detective Sergeant Lambert relied on his own inquiries and the material in the declarations of Dr Green and Mrs Barry-Martin and said that their contents did not appear to bear out Dr Hunton’s claim that all the abortions at the centre were being carried out within the law.

Point emphasised His Honour said it was desirable that he make abundantly clear “that we are concerned in this appeal with one question only, namely the validity as a matter of law of the warrant and that depends, in turn, on the statutory provisions relating to the issue of search warrants generally, not merely warrants in relation to offences of illegal termination of pregnancy.”