NEW TRIAL ORDERED

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 273, 13 August 1932, Page 12

NEW TRIAL ORDERED

Jury Fails to Agree A LONG RETIREMENT After a retirement which lasted all the morning and part of the afternoon at the Supreme Court yesterday, the jury failed to agree in the case against Walter Anderson Clifton, an engineer, who had pleaded not guilty to two charges of indecent assault on a female under the age of 16. The Court sat at 9 a.m., when his Honour Air. Justice Reed summed up, the evidence and adresses having been heard on the previous day. The jury retired at 9.25 and deliberated all the morning. It resumed after lunch and returned to the courtroom shortly before 2.30 p.m., with a request that some of the evidence should be read again. The jury required also some information from his Honour which would assist them in arriving at a verdict. His Honour said that if there was an overwhelming majority of the jury of opinion that they were not prepared to accept entirely—or that it was dangerous to rely upon—the evidence of the children, and so convict the accused, he did not think that a small minority would be sacrificing any principle if they gave way. “Of course, I am not referring,” said his Honour," to.a case where a jury are very closely divided; but if it is only a very small minority who are holding out, I think after a lengthy discussion, of some five hours, that without any sacrifice of'principle at all those persons could say: ‘Well, we don’t propose to stand out any longer.’” When the jury had been out of the courtroom for another 20 minutes and returned, the foreman announced that they had failed to agree. "I am sorry you cannot agree,” said his Honour. “I quite recognise that in a case of this sort there is plenty of room for an honest difference of opinion.” On the application of the Crown Prosecutor an order was made by his Honour for a new trial at the next quarterly sessions. Clifton’s ball was renewed.