Epps trial jury in hotel under guard

Press, 14 May 1982, Page 4

Epps trial jury in hotel under guard

PA Wellington The Lester Epps murder trial jury spent last night under police guard in a central Wellington hotel after failing to reach a verdict after almost 10 hours of deliberations.

' The jury retired at 12.17 p.m. after hearing a 2 1 2-hour summing-up by Mr Justice Savage in the High Court. When it failed to reach a decision by 10 p.m., the jurors were taken to a hotel. They will reconvene this morning.

A jury sitting overnight is unusual, although it has happened before. In Auckland, the jury in the J.B.L. case deliberated over a week-end.

In his summing-up. his Honour told, the all-male jury that theirs was a serious, important task of great importance to the community.

Fourteen men. members of an Eastern Suburbs RugbyLeague team, have pleaded not guilty to the charge of the murder of Mr Epps, a Mongrel Mob leader, on August 15 last year. The jury must draw inferences from the facts established. provided the inferences were justified by the facts and were not guesses or speculation, his Honour said.

“Whether you disapprove of groups such as the Mongrel Mob and approve of sporting clubs — or the other way round — is irrelevant,” he said. “Everyone is entitled to

the benefit of the law even if they break the law. “It is the mark of an ordered and civilised society that the law applies equally to all. No group is justified in taking the law into its own hands and giving those they consider violent a taste of their own medicine," he said.

“Besides, some people might feel this group of accused is not such a decent group. To set out equipped with pieces of wood with the intention of smashing up a house is deplorable, the least said the better." His Honour reminded the jury that the Crown had to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt in each case. Proof with a degree of mathematical certainty was not required nor expected, he said, and reasonable doubt did not mean a vague, fanciful doubt. He understood the Crown to say that those who administered blows were guilty of murder and that those who were parties were also guilty, either as parties byaiding or abetting or on the basis of a common plan.

The case of each of the accused must be considered separately. Of the defence case, his Honour said that the juryshould ask itself what the common purpose entailed. If the jury considered that the common purpose ended when the accused had left the Brown Street house, it should acquit.