NEW INQUEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1944, Page 7

NEW INQUEST

JUDGE GRANTS APPLICATION P.A. ■ TIMARU, July 26,

"I regard this as an act of injustice which this Court should put right," said Mr. Justice Northcroft in. the Supreme Court today, when making an order in response to an application, unusual in New Zealand Courts, to quash the findings of a Coroner, Mr. C W. Wood. J.P.. in an inquest into the death of Geor" Albert Fraser, whose body was recovered from the Opihi River on March 22 with a gunshot wound in the neck. The Court errnted the plea oi the petitioner, Kitty Elizabeth Fraser, widow, and ordered another inquest to be conducted by Mr. H. Morgan, S.M. The Judge said he had given consideration to the statute, which provided that the ends of justice would be served by quashing the findings at the inquest, but the statute was not explicit. He could not accept protection of the reputation of the dead man as the reason for making the order, but he could make the order where the reputation of the family might be involved. ; ~ After reviewing the evidence at the inquest, Mr. Justice Northcroft said that if the Coroner had not been prepared to find an open verdict he could certainly find no warrant, to find suicidal death. A Coroner's, findings sh- uld not be arrived at lightly. He would therefore order another inquest, but he declined to make an order tor the elimination of the depositions that had been taken at the inquest already held.