TAKEN FROM JURY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 99, 23 October 1940, Page 11

TAKEN FROM JURY

HOTEL FIRE CASE

CONTINUED BEFORE CHIEF JUSTICE

PLAINTIFF'S CASE ■ ENDED

By agreement between counsel and with the approval of the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), the.Lloyds Hotel fire case which began yesterday in the Supreme Court was todaywithdrawn from the jury of twelve, and the hearing was continued before the Chief Justice alone.

His Honour told the jury, when it assembled this morning, that the case was one in which there might arise certain questions of law, one of them at least a very difficult question. It would be exceedingly difficult to frame the issues to be answered by the jury so as to ensure a satisfactory .result, and it might lead to a great deal more litigation, which the parties wished to avoid. Counsel had agreed that the ends of justice might best be achieved by having the case heard and decided by a Judge alone and of that agreement his Honour cordially approved. He therefore discharged the jury. The plaintiff in the case is Olive Gwynne, and she claimed £928 3s from Robert Stuart Wilson, a hotel proprietor, because of the death of her daughter, Kathleen Olive Matthews, aged 17, a waitress, in the fire which occurred at the hotel in the early morning of February 10.

Dr. O. C. Mazengarb appeared for the plaintiff and Mr. E. Parry for the defendant.

Yesterday afternoon's proceedings are reported on page 6.

Continuing his evidence, Norman Charles Haigh, deputy building superintendent of the Wellington City Council, replied to Mr. Parry that in his opinion there had been a hole in the hotel kitchen floor before the fire, but it had been covered by some material and that covering might have been burned.

Mr. Parry said that the theory expressed by the witness in his evidence in chief that the oblong hole in the floor had been cut there to make room for the wheel of the food lift was correct.

The witness said he had come to the conclusion that the fire had started near the hole in the floor, but he would not express any opinion as to what started it. The hotel complied with the city bylaws at the time if was erected.

Detective G. Hogan said he began inquiries into the fire to see if there were any grounds or evidence to suggest that the fire had been maliciously caused. He found no such evidence or suggestion. He saw Mr. Wilson in the kitchen when fire brigade officers were examining the place. He asked him if anything had been done to the furnace fire and Mr. Wilson replied that he had damped it down and the witness took him to mean that he did it after the brigade had left the first time. Mr. Wilson's opinion was that the fire was caused by the chimney. The witness thought from his examination that the seat of the fire was in the vicinity of the hole burnt in the floor. " To Mr. Parry, the detective said that Mr. Wilson might have meant that he had damped the fire down before the brigade left on the first occasion. AFFAIRS OF THE PLAINTIFF. The plaintiff, Olive Gwynne, said she had four children of a former marriage, the second daughter being Kathleen Olive Matthews. She divorced her first husband in 1936, having had no maintenance from him for years, and she remarried in February this year, just after the death of the girl. The plaintiff said she had been working for some years. Her eldest daughter was an invalid and unable to work. Kathleen started work in Christchurch at the age of 16, and used to give plaintiff part of her wages to help with the invalid girl. At Lloyd's Hotel she was getting £2 a week and keep and she gave the plaintiff two amounts of 30s each in three weeks.

On the Monday before the fire, said the plaintiff, she went to see Kathleen at the hotel. She asked Mr. Wilson if she could see her and he replied that Kathleen was still in her room. It was rather far for her to go up, Mr. Wilson said, and he sent a call for Kathleen to come down.

Cross-examined by Mr. Parry, the ! plaintiff said that in 1926 Kathleen was admitted to a home in Christchurch. She was about three years old then. She stayed there till December, 1935, and in those nine years the plaintiff saw her regularly. The plaintiff left Christchurch seven years ago and saw Kathleen once before she (Kathleen) came to Wellington in 1939. In that time Kathleen was sending her money. She would be surprised if there was evidence that no money was sent at all in that period. The plaintiff did not know how much had been sent, as she never kept any account of it. She would not say that her financial position was better since her marriage. She did not know whether the girl's father was still alive, or whether his mother was still living. I Mr. Parry: Do you realise that if you are entitled to damages in this case your first husband, the father of the girl, may be in a position to make a claim too? The plaintiff: I don't know anything about that. Have you endeavoured to get in touch with him in any way in connection with these proceedings?—No, sir. Why should I? Mr. Parry asked the plaintiff whether she seriously suggested to the Court that she was entitled to pecuniary benefit from Kathleen, a young girl who had her own way to pay. "We had an understanding," replied the plaintiff. "I helped her and she helped me." The plaintiff added that the girl did more for her than she did for the girl. Mr. Matthews had absolutely deserted the children. It was years since she had tried to get maintenance from him and although she had got an order she received no money. It would be untrue to say that not one penny of the girl's wages while she was working at the hotel had been paid to the plaintiff. SEAT OF THE FIRE. Walter Edward Aked, building superintendent of the Wellington City Council, said that in his opinion the fire began immediately below the dumbwaiter chute on the opposite side of the partition from the boiler. He saw no evidence of a fire between the boiler and the partition. To Mr. Parry, the witness said he would not say it was impossible for the fire to have started in another way. The chimney might.have become heated and set fire to woodwork on the first or second floor and the draught might, have caused the fire to spread up the chute so that burning debris from it might, have fallen to the kitchen floor and started a fire there. In his opinion, however, that did not occur.

Frederick William Furkert, for many years Engineer in Chief of the Public Works Department, said he visited