STAGPOOLE CASE.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 1797, 18 May 1912, Page 2

STAGPOOLE CASE.

CHANGE OF VENUE GRANTED.

REASONS GIVEN IN THE JUDG-

MENT,

PER PHESS ASSOCIATION. Wellington, May 17. By the decision of the Supreme Court to-day, change of venue from Palmerston North to Wellington was granted in the case of Thomas Stagpoole v. Pirani and Co., Limited, and Frederick Pirani. The application was hearel by Mr Justice Cooper and Mr Justice Chapman, the judgment of the Court being delivered by the latter. Mr A. W. Blair appeared for the defendants in support of the application, and Mr Myers for the plaintiff, to oppose.

The action was for alleged libel published in tho Feilding Star, owned and managed by defendants. The plaintiff wag a schoolmaster under the Education Board. The alleged libel was headed "A fraudulent return sent in by Mr Stagpoole." "The defendant, Frederick Pirani," the judgment stated, "had taken a leading part in a lengthy proceeding involving an inquiry into plaintiff's conduct before the Teachers' Court of Appeal in which plaintiff appealed from a decision of the Wanganui Education' Board. We think it is undeniable that the hearing of that appeal caused a great deal of feeling and considerable excitement in a district wide enough to include the town of Palmerston, where the inquiry was held. Mr Myers had argued that the alleged libel is a comparatively simple matter standing quite apart from the questions arising upon the hearing of the appeal. To some extent this is true, but we are satisfied that the whole subject of the Education Board's decision and Mr • Stagpoole's appeal, with which the matter complained of is not wholly unconnected, have entered into the public mind in the district, and that feeling has run high in connection with Mr Stagpoole and his- grievance. It i s not too much to say that a- local atmosphere has been created which is highly charged with excitement. In the" circumstances disclosed by the affidavit, we do not think we can attribute to the public that they will, or to the whole jury panel that it will thus carefully discriminate between the cause of the excitement and the subject of the action. All the matters which have caused and kept up excitement and feeling must be looked upon as to some extent cumulative."

Referring to the publication in the Manawatu Daily Times of certain affidavits their Honours said: "It is difficult to see why interlocutory proceedings in such an action should interest the public unless there was already a state of excitement in the district. It seems to us to accentuate the fact that excitement, exists, and that prejudice probably exists." In the commentary upon this the article goes on to say: "We recognise that the Feilding Star has endeavoured to foster antagonism between the two "towns. We do not think that such an impression has any tendency to allay the prejudice which Mr Pirani states on oath exists in Palmerston against him. The matter does not stop there, as in the issue of May Ist appears a letter headed 'Rough on Palmerston and its Jury List,' and signed. 'I am, etc., on the Jury list.' This letter censures three business men in Palmerston who had so low an opinion of the people of their town that they did not consider them capable of sitting on a jury that would give a man a fair trial. As the letter is published anonymously, it may be regarded as adopted editorially. There can be no doubt that such matters as appear in the affidavits would be looked upon by muuy people, and possibly by many jurors, as offensive. Had- they not been published in this way, we cannot but think that their publication might prove prejudicial to the defendants of the action, and we come to the conclusion that it is undesirable in the interests of justice, and it would not be fair that this case should be tried in Palmerston. This may Be unfortunate for the plaintiff, who is not to blame, but it is not in the interests of justice that a trial should take place where such conditions exist." An order was made for the trial at Wellington, with costs £5 ss, costs in the action.