YOUTH CHARGED

Evening Star, Issue 19549, 6 May 1927, Page 4

YOUTH CHARGED

ALLEGED CARNAL KNOWLEDGE THE CASE AGAINST SUTHERLAND Hearing was continued in the Supreme Court this morning of the case in which James Robert Stanley Sutherland was charged with having unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl fifteen years of age. MrtF. B. Adams conducted the case for the Crown and Mr C. J. L. White for the accused, who pleaded not guilty. The case for tho prosecution was heard yesterday. This morning Sir White produced a birth certificate showing that at tho time of the alleged offence tho accused was seventeen and a-half years of age. He said accused denied all knowledge of the midnight affair in the room with the girl. Counsel said accused would give evidence. ' His Honor: Do I understand he is going to deny being,’,in tho room at all that night?

Air White: Yes. Accused having gone into the witness box His Honor asked, “ Does he thoroughly appreciate what he is doing in denying having been in tho room that right?’’ Mr White: He certainly denies it. His Honor; Does ho appreciate the position ? , Mr White:--He admits being in the room on one occasion, but not on that particular night, His Honor , remarked that he supposed Mr White had already considered and weighed the matter. Accused,"sworn, said he had just turned eighteen years of age. He first met the girl in September last. Shortly afterwards he met the mother, who consented to his keeping company with the girl. Ho and tho girl went to the pictures every Saturday. One night the two discussed the matter of a situation, which the girl proposed to take, and he suggested that she should not take it. This caused trouble with the mother, and accused ceased to go to the house but continued to take the girl out. As regards her age, accused was unaware that she was still going to school until a friend of his one day remarked that the girl had just got her “proficiency.” The girl had told him when they first met that she won d be seventeen next birthday. Ho had admitted to Miss O’Shea that ne knew the eirl’s age because, at that time, he did know it. He also admitted that he had been once in the girl’s bedroom. Miss O’Shea had frightened him when she said he would get three years for the girl. He had never been in trouble before. To the Crown Prosecutor accused denied having had intimacy with the girl. He could suggest no reason why the girl should he about him. There was no truth in the mother’s evidence that he was in the bedroom on the particular night. He knew of no reason why ‘ - should say he was, but he felt she did not trust him after she found him putting his hat and coat m the bedroom. The mother allowed him to go with the girl for several months, and because of the incident in the bedroom when he put his hat and coat there she came along with the lies. He knew of no reason why Miss, O Shea should give evidence against him. ~, . , It was just a few days before Christmas that he knew she, was at school last year, said accused in reply to further questions. He had not seen her doing lessons, nor had he seen her with a schoolbag. He thought the girl was seventeen years of ago. He was at her birthday party and took along some R 1< Mr White: “People don’t usually brag about their age on their birthdays.”

Mr Adams; “Not at seventeen.” His Honor quoted parts of Miss O'Shea’s evidence, and asked accused if ho thought she lied. Sutherland• “Yes, sir.” Mr White, in addressing the jury, said that the case was not the type which usually came under this heading. Learned counsel reminded the jury that if they thought accused had had reasonable grounds for believing the girl was over sixteen, this, in the case of a youth under twenty-one, was in itself a defence. It often happened, continued Mr White, that a girl for some reason gave an uncorroborated story and the man concerned was called upon months afterwards to answer it and give details of where he was at certain times and what had happened. The story put forward by the Crown, said learned counsel, was an amazing one in every way. What sort of mother, ho asked, would allow a boy and girl of that ago to go about alone, “ keeping company ”? The mother now. to whitewash herself, had denied giving her consent to the couple going out together. If the Crown’s story about the boy being found in the girl’s room w’ere true it was remarkable that the mother should after that oonto accused still visiting the house mid . aking the girl out. After referring to discrepancies in the evidence in regard to the placing of the clock in the girl’s room by the mother. Mr White pointed out that the mother, after finding the hoy there, as she alleged, walked up the street with him, and that she was apparently less concerned about the moral aspect of the affair than about her daughter’s condition. Learned counsel went on to suggest that Miss O’Shea had acted in a most extraordinary manner. After the girl had denied improper conduct Miss O’Shea had threatened to take her to a home, and it was only after this threat that the so-called confession was made. That in itself aroused the gravest suspicion. Learned counsel submitted that the Crown case altogether raised very grave doubt, and the jury would hesitate before branding the hoy as a criminal. In addressing the jury the Crown Prosecutor said it was natural on the part of the mother in the circumstances not to inform the others in the house of what she dieted had happened to her daughter. In dealing with the question of the age of the girl the speaker said the jury had heard her m the box, and could not think she was over sixteen. The evidence of Miss O’Shea was cmciol. It was impossible to imagine, <u had been suggested, that that lad>’ would dream of periuring herself to pur down a youth, like the accused., I,earned counsel sugECSted, in C ”T£ ,US '°* 1 ’ A 1 1? the case presented no difficult! whatever to the iurv. THE SUMMING UP. His Honor, in summing up, detailed the law in respect of. the charges, and then went on to review and comment upon the story as revealed in the evidence. This young schoolgirl of fourteen, he said, had been attracted by and attracted the accused; they became friendly, and he came to the house. In the circumstances m which the mother was placed she would not be likely to object to the youth giving her daughter any harmless pleasure which she herself could not afford. After the alleged occurrence in the girl s bedroom the mother had exacted a promise from the hov that he would have no more to do with her daughter, but the couple had continued to go. out + otp* -i° r - - the mother, recognising the risk or such companionship, had applied : , O’Shea, whom the Government had placed in her position for the purpose of protecting young girls. Miss 0 Shea may have threatened the boy, but her intentions at that time were to dissuade him from having anything to do with the girl. Afterwards she had taken the girl to a home and informed the police. His Honor went on to say that, even if the girl’s story was uncorroborated, there was no reason to suggest that it had been invented. There

v-ns ro suggestion that another man \yas concerned. Then, Miss O’Shea was iot.iiiy uninterested m the matter except for her desire to save l!’i> girl, aml it was extreme*'.’ onlikelv teat she should come to the court and swear a fatso story. iJealm,., > defence—that, if an accused was under the ago of twenty-one, and,, further, had reasonable cause to believe that the girl was over sixteen, it was an ‘xcu.-a— His Honor asked If it could he possible for the girl to be a schoolgirl all that time without the accused’s knowledge. Then, accused had attended a birthday party of the girl’s, where it was very probable that her age would ho mentioned, while the mother had sworn that she had more than once mentioned in accused’s presence the jirl’s age. “And take the appearance of the girl herself,” added His Honor. “ Would you consider her, even now, to be over sixteen years of age?” VERDICT OF “GUILTY.” The jurv retired at 11.30, and turned at 12.5 with a verdic' 1 “Guilty.” The prisoner was remr;; • until Monday for sentence.