NO NEW TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 13

NO NEW TRIAL

THE MAREO CASE

APPLICATION FAILS

JUDGES UNANIMOUS

The application on behalf of Eric Mareo for a new trial on the charge of murdering his wife, Thelma Mareo, by veronal poisoning, has failed. Judgment dismissing the application was given by the Court of Appeal this afternoon. The Court came to the conclusion that the evidence was such that a jury could reasonably and properly find the prisoner guilty. Five Judges heard the appeal, and their decision was unanimous. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) prepared a separate judgment of some sixteen foolscap pages, and another judgment was delivered by Mr. Justice Ostler on behalf of himself and the remaining Judges, namely, Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Blair, and Mr. Justice Kennedy. This judgment occupied eighteen foolscap pages. SUGGESTIONS BY DEFENCE. After dealing with the principles applicable to the consideration of an application under section 446 of the Crimes Act, 1908, for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is against the weight of evidence, the Chief Justice referred to the theory of the Crown and the contentions advanced on behalf of the prisoner. His Honour said that there was evidence of the purchase ot poison by the prisoner and that the theory of the Crown did not depend upon a consecutive series of assumptions unsupported by any evidence. That the woman died from veronal poisoning was undisputed, and was indeed indisputable. That point seemed to have been proved beyond possibility of doubt. It was not suggested that any person other than, the prisoner could be pointed to as having administered veronal to the deceased, and indeed there was ample evidence from which the jury was entitled to conclude that there was no intentional administration by any third person. What counsel for the prisoner suggested was that the evidence was not such as to entitle the jury to infer the prisoner's guilt, and the only alternative suggested was that the veronal might have been taken by the deceased herself, either with a suicidal intention or by, misadventure, and that this possibility was not reasonably excluded. His Honour said he did not understand counsel to suggest that the deceased could have • herself taken veronal by misadventure, but the suggestion was that she might in some way by misadventure have taken it in such large quantities as to bring about her death without any suicidal intention. ' DECEASED AND VERONAL. His Honour referred to portions of the evidence which he thought essential on the aspects of the case he was dealing with. It had been contended, said his Honour, that there had been a particular opportunity for the deceased to obtain veronal from the suitcage in the washhouse and to administer it to herself on the Friday night or the Saturday morning or even on the Saturday night before the deceased called out to Freda Stark who was then in the sitting-room. "It is true," continued his Honour, "that Mrs. Mareo was out of bed on the Friday night for a little while, because, there is .the evidence of Miss Stark of her being in' the bathroom when Miss Stark arrived, and also the evidence of Graham Mareo and Betty Mareo that she walked along the passage on the Friday evening. I should think, however—arid certainly the jury was justified in finding—that the Friday evening was undoubtedly the last occasion on which if she were so disposed and knew of the hiding place of the veronal she might have obtained it. The' jury would certainly be justified in concluding that there was no opportunity on the Saturday morning, because the prisoner had been in the bedroom all Friday night and left to go to his bath somewhere about 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, and almost immediately afterwards there occurred the incidents of the bumps and of Mrs. Mareo standing at the dressing table to which reference has already been made.' It was suggested by Mr. O'Leary that there was not excluded the possibility of Mrs. Mareo having obtained the veronal from the suitcase prior to the Friday, kept it secreted in her room, and taken doses of it herself on the Saturday morning and also on the Saturday night during her two hours of wakef ulness or semi-wakefulness. But, so far at all events as the Saturday night is concerned, the jury had the evidence of Miss Stark and the doctor's upon which they were entitled to conclude that this possibility was excluded." After dealing with the prisoner's statements to the police and other witnesses who gave evidence at his trial, the Chief Justice concluded his judgment as follows:— "It is sufficient, I think, to say that here there was a prima facie case apart from any material which might otherwise have been debatable. That being so, the jury had to consider the evidence as a whole, and it all comes back to the question whether the verdict was one that twelve reasonable men, giving due weight to the presumption of law in favour of the prisoner's innocence, could not properly find. I am forced to the conclusion that this has not been shown, but that on the contrary the evidence was such that a jury could reasonably and properly find the prisoner guilty. In my opinion the application fails and should be dismissed." THE OTHER JUDGMENT. More detailed reference to the evidence was made in the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Ostler. This judgment also dealt specifically with inferences which it was felt the jury were entitled to draw on various aspects of the evidence. "Here is a case of a woman," stated the judgment, "who died on the Monday afternoon at 5.30 o'clock of veronal poisoning, never having meanwhile recovered consciousness since she fell asleep on the previous Saturday night after drinking half a cup full of hot milk prepared by the prisoner, she being then in a dazed condition from the effect of what could only have been a previous dose of veronal. The prisioner had admitted to two witnesses that he had given her veronal on the Friday night. He slept in the chair in her room on the Friday night, no one else being there. He was with her alone a great part of Saturday, and therefore le had an opportunity of administering veronal both on Friday and on Saturday morning when he found his wife standing by her dressing table in delirium, and put her back to bed. On these facts the jury were clearly entitled to infer that no one else could have given it. The suggestion of the defence is that it was not proved that Mrs. Mareo could not have taken it herself. But the reasonable inference from the evidence is that Mrs. Mareo was never conscious on the Saturday except for the period of some two hours from 10 p.m. to midnight. During all that time Miss Stark was with her, so that unless Miss Stark gave it to her, which is not suggested, she could not have taken it then. The jury was justified in ruling out the sug-

gestion that Mrs. Mareo may have taken a dose after waking up and before calling Miss Stark into the room, for she remained awake for some two hours after Miss Stark came in, which would have been impossible according to the medicsl evidence if she had taken a lethal dose herself. The doctors were asked if they had considered whether the three doses of sal volatile administered to Mrs. Mareo could have had the effect of activating veronal which might have remained in her stomach from a previous dose. They gave a clear opinion that the administration of the sal volatile could have had no such effect, as veronal was rapidly absorbed from the stomach into the blood, and there would be very little veronal remaining in the stomach at the time she was given the sal volatile. The jury therefore must have come to the con-clusions-and we think on the evidence that the jury could properly consider that these were the only conclusions they could come to, that the sleep and subsequent coma and death of the deceased was caused by the administration of a lethal dose of veronal while she was awake on Saturday night; that it was impossible for her to have administered that dose to herself; and that the only way in which it could have been administered was in the cup of hot milk prepared by the prisoner.

QUANTITY OF VERONAL IN MILK.

"The evidence justifies the conclusion that she drank enough milk to have taken 50 grains of veronal, which is an average minimum lethal dose. But the evidence as to her condition on the Saturday before she woke up in the evening justified a conclusion that she had one or more previous doses. The prisoner had admitted that he had given her veronal on the Friday evening. If he put sufficient veronal into the milk which she drank to cause her to go into a sleep from which she never recovered, then the jury were justified, in coming to the conclusion that he put an overdose of veronal into the milk and caused it to be administered to her with the intention of killing her, and therefore their verdict cannot be disturbed." CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF EVIDENCE. The main point made by counsel for the prisoner, continued the judgment, was that the Crown did not prove its case because it did not by its evidence exclude the possibility that the veronal from the effect of which Mrs. Mareo died was taken by herself. In the opinion of their Honours this possibility was excluded beyond any doubt. When one considered cumulatively the whole of the evidence against the prisoner, in their Honours.opinion the jury might properly feel that the case had been proved against him beyond any reasonable doubt. Their Honours also found that the jury were entitled to infer that the prisoner's reluctance to obtain medical help was not referable to any1 fear that .he might be charged with the crime of procuring abortion, but to the fear that it might be discovered that he was administering overdoses of veronal to his wife. In other words, the jury had ample evidence from which to infer that the prisoner's acts an 3 statements in this respect pointed to his being guilty of the very crime with which he was charged.

At the hearing of the application Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., of Wellington, with him Mr. T. Henry and Mr. K. C. Aekins, both of Auckland, appeared for Mareo, and Mr. A. H. Johnstone, K.C., with him Mr. V. N. Hubble, both of Auckland, for the Crown.