WOMAN CHARGED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 101, 26 October 1938, Page 15

WOMAN CHARGED

• SERIOUS OFFENCE

PLEA FROM THE DOCK

JUDGE'S REMARKS TO JURY

The hearing of evidence in the case of Marjorie Pickering, aged 42, who answered two charges of unlawfully using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage, was concluded in the Supreme Court today, and the jury retired shortly before 1 p.m. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr. W. H. Cunningham) did not address the jury. In the course of his address to the jury, Mr. F. W. Ongley, who appeared for the accused, questioned the Crown witnesses' identification of the accused, and also stressed the fact that the evidence was that of accomplices. The accused briefly addressed the jury from the dock, commenting upon some of the evidence. "I have four broken-hearted children at home waiting for me, three entirely dependent on me," she said. "If you condemn me, gentlemen, you condemn them." In the course of his summing up, his Honour Mr. Justice Quilliam dealt with the questions of identification and corroboration. He remarked that if the accused had committed crime, she had not done it for poor women in distress, but for filthy lucre, for £15 in one case and £20 in another, and she had refused to proceed unless she got the money. How was it, his Honour asked, that the accused's address was known? He pointed out that the witnesses had had ample opportunity of recognising the accused.

"You might not approve of the law," said his Honour to the jury. "You might think it is wrong that the two women and. the two men concerned are not placed in the dock with the accused. I am sure you will not misunderstand me when I say that that is no concern of yours. You have to administer the law as it is; it is not for you to do anything but to give your verdict according to the evidence."

After. referring to Mr. Ongley's remark that if the jury were to err it would be better for them to err on the side of humanity, his Honour said: "It might occur to you that humanity demands the stoppage of this infamous practice of abortion." He remarked that it was a case of a sordid character, and the lives of two females had been in danger. He did not intend to deal with the moral aspect of the case; the Court was a Court of Justice, and not a court of morals. If they disbelieved the evidence of the Crown and thought that a conspiracy had been set afoot, they would find the accused not guilty, but if the Crown had satisfied them that there was a clear conviction of the guilt of the accused, irrespective of their feelings, as honest men they had no alternative but to return a verdict accordingly.

The jury retired and had not returned at the time "The Post" went to press.