MAIN CHARGE FAILS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1941, Page 6

MAIN CHARGE FAILS

OAMARU SHOOTING GUILTY OF ARMED THREAT JURY'S FINDING (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, February 5. At tlie conclusion of tlie trial of William Meehan in the Supreme Court today oh a charge of attempted murder, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the eighth count only; that of assaulting George Robert Edwards and Frederick McAuley, the said assault being committed by threatening them with a loaded rifle and fixed bayonet. The accused was remanded for sentence. When the hearing was resumed today evidence was given by George Herbert Christensen, Oamaru, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect, that six records of the lecture had been put through when he heard a shot. Before the meeting he gave a man some literature but could not recall whether that man was the accused. bHe denied having told this man that any fellow who went to fight in this war was a murderer. David Jackman, retired linesman, said he gave Meehan about 20 rounds of ammunition for pigshooting eight years ago. Constable Buchanan stated that following the shot McAuley fell forward, crying out "Stop." He saw Edwards and Ridley holding Meehan down. The latter was excited and smelt of alcohol, but was quite sober. Meehan said: "I know what I'm doing. They're fifth columnists. That's the way to get rid of fifth column —-." On the way to the police station the accused said he had lost his head but would do it again. He repeated this at the station, adding: "That is how France and Belgium went under." The accused also said that the rifle exploded accidentally and he hoped he had not hurt anyone else. When charged, Meehan said: "That's not correct. I didn't know that man. The rifle went off accidentally in the struggle." This concluded the evidence for the Crown. Counsel for Meehan, Mr. C. S. Thomas, Said he would not be calling evidence for the defence. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Adams, reviewed the evidence in detail, describing the accused's act as dastardly and cowardly and not one that reflected credit on the great army with which he had fought in the last war. ADDRESS IN DEFENCE. Addressing the jury, Mr. Thomas referred to the bewildering number of charges against the accused, an array which, he submitted, showed weakness on'the part of the Crown. "Before you can convict the accused on the charge of attempted murder," Mr. Thomas said, "you have to find that he intended to kill. At the time of the occurrence Jehovah's Witnesses were a notorious body opposed to all organised religion, and they caused a diversion in this country. The accused knew that in the hall this Judge Rutherford, this Yankee spellbinder, was to speak, and his lecture, I submit, was subversive and seditious. "These Jehovah's Witnesses go their own sweet way whether their teaching results in the destruction of our Empire or not. We know what 'fifth columnists' are and how they secured the fall of Norway, Holland, Belgium, and bFrance, and if these Jehovah's Witnesses are not 'fifth columnists,' tell me what they are? Most people prefer to call them traitors." Mr. Thomas reminded the jury that on October 13 Britain had lost her allies and the air blitz was on. The accused knew that a seditious meeting was being held. Counsel submitted that it was the accused's duty to go and stop it. Intent had not been proved, and he suggested that the story of the Crown witnesses did not reveal the whole truth. He pointed out that it had been admitted by one of them that they talked the case over and discussed the question of crossexamination. THE SUMMING UP. Mr. Justice Kennedy, summing up, said that citizens of the country must obey its laws and were entitled to the protestion of those laws. They were not there to try the Jehovah's Witnesses ; for any alleged offence. The question was whether the accused had or had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt guilty of the charges. Mr. Thomas had taken a view of the law in expressing what he said were the rights of the accused in going to the meeting. He would say at once that this view was not the correct one and was based on an erroneous view of what the law really was. His Honour traversed the evidence at length and remarked that the body called Jehovah's Witnesses was a body which was carrying on propaganda about this time. This method of carrying on propaganda was disapproved— perhaps that was too mild a word to use—strongly by good citizens of the country. , The accused, patriotic and high-minded br otherwise as he might be, had proceeded to the meeting with a rifle and bayonet, a dangerous thing unless care was taken. The jury retired at 3.20 p.m. and returned at 4.20 p.m. with its verdict.