GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 29, 3 August 1921, Page 12

GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

JURY'S QUALIFIED VERDICT

TO BE BEF.EERED TO COURT OF

APPEAL.

Th« chief pointa made by Henry Charles HoUa-ad! and Frederick "Walter Roscoe, late manager and head storeman for the Empiro Manufacturing Company, when they were chargedl at the Supreme Court yesterday with the theft of goods to the value of £76 odd from the company, was that they had called in a carter to take away the articles for temporary storage, .pending th«ir leaving the company's employ, and opening a rival business; that is, they-fully intended! to make out a docket, and to pay for them. That latter point the Grown Prosecutor, Mr. P. S. K. Macassey, sought to disprove, and called evidence to show that although a. list of tho goods had been made out, no docket had been, presented. The jury, wliich returned to the Court at 4J35 p.m., after a retirement of just under an hour and a half, brought in a verdict which struck a medium b«tweeu the arguments for the prosecution and defence : "We find both cacusedi guilty, with a strong recommendation to leniency, on account of insufficiency of proof that they dWi not intend to pay for the''goods."

His Honour, Mr. Justice Bteedi, aaid that he could not accept a verdict in that form, and instructed the jury to retire and reconsider its verdict upon the parr ticular point, for, Jio pointedl out, the onus of proving, that there was an intention to pay was upon, the accused. Counsel for the defence, Mr. 0. A. L. Tread Troll, submitted that guoh a verdict was equivalent to one of not guilty. His Honour noted the point, and' Wr© jury retired. Finally a verdict-of guilty, with, the strongest -recommendation to mercy, was returned. ■ ■ ' <

His Honour stated that ho would state a caee for the Court of* Appeal,, that there might be a fall consideration of the points of law involved in the questions of whether his direction to the jury had been correct, and' as to whether counsels submission that the first verdact should stand) and tho prisoners be discharged was tenable.