COATS’ TRIAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1931, Page 7

COATS’ TRIAL

OWN STATEMENT PRODUCED DETECTIVE’S EVIDENCE [PEE PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, November G. At the trial of George Errol Coats, Detective W. R. Murray was the first witness after , lunch. He said that he interviewed Coats on July 6. Witness told Coats that St was /believed that he had made an illegal operation on Phillis Symons. Coats then volunteered a statement.

At this stage, counsel for the defence objected to the statement and before it was read, he cross-examined the witness as to the method of taking the statement. Witness said that he commenced to interview the accused shortly after 9 a.m., and he was charged with the alleged offence about 12.15 a.m. on the next day. Coats, he said, was not being interviewed all the time. Between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. he was in the detective office, where he was sitting and smoking. Detective Murray told his Honor that it was customary to ask a person

to ,come to the Detective Office and to remain there in order that his statement could be checked. He explained that, after an information had been sworn, the matter had to proceed through the usual channels. He said the lateness of the charge in the case of Coats was due to the fact that he experienced some difficulty at that time of night in' obtaining the services of a Justice of the Peace, before whom the information could be sworn.

An adjournment was taken at this stage for the purpose of argument in the chambers as to the admissibility of Coats’s statement to Detective Murray. His Honor said, on resumption in open Court, he had decided that the statements were admissible. . . Counsel for the accused asked that his objection to the admission of the statement should be. noted. Detective Murray told the Crown Prosecutor that at the time of the first statement, in the morning, he had only Mr Symons’ complaint about the girl being missing, and a letter of the girl’s which had been found. In this first statement, Coats said that he had got to know the girl in August and September, and about a month later had started to keep company with her. He used to go to the pictures with her, meeting her by appointment, which was often arranged in letters. They used to write to each other. These letters, Coats supposed, could properly be referred to as lovers’ letters. Soon after they began going out together, she told him: that she would be 18 on December B,| 1930. '“lt did not strike me,” Coats said, “that there was anything wrong in the manner of our friendship, because I understood her parents knew that we were gojng out together, as I had been introduced to her mother on one occasion, and her brother knew that we were keeping company together-.” Intimacies -began about Christmas time, and some time in February Coats first knew that the girl was in a certain condition. “It was one Sunday night, probably about early March,” Coats continued, “that I returned to my room in Abel Smith Street, about 6.30 p.m.. and I found Phyl sitting on the bed. I asked what was the matter, and she said she would tell me after she had had a cry. After crying for some time, she to’d me she had run away from home. She said she was making some toast when her mother hit her, and her brother Murray, came on the scene, and hit her mother for striking her. Her other brother then came in and he and Murray had a fight. Her mother had told her to. get out of it. She had left home as the result of this row, and also on account of previous rows which had taken place at her home. I >yas out of work at the time, and told her I did not have much money but she proposed staying with me. I am positive it was not me who first made this proposition. I consented to her staying.” WHY GIRL LEFT. Coats then described in his statement, various moves they had made to other places. They managed to struggle along on his small earnings fro mthe relief works. ‘T did not consider that my proper course was to take the gifl home to her parents, because I knew she would not have gone in any case,” Coats said. “It may be that it was not a right thing for me to do to co-habit with this young girl, but I deny that I induced her to stay with me, or that I ever prevented her from going home.- She could have gone home at any time she liked. We lived together as man and wife because she wanted to do so, and my position in the matter was that I consented to this.”

“On Thursday, June 25, Phyll left me,” Coats continued. “The circumstances were that I had missed a job in the Fire Brigade in Auckland through not being on the spot—l told Rhyl that I was not earning enough to keep us both, and that it was best that I should try to get up to Auckland, and. she agreed to go away then—she said she had plenty of friends to go to; but she did not suggest where she was going. She left me without my having any knowledge where she had gone—l asked her where she intended to go. She would not tell me.” Coats said the plan was that he was to write to her, care of the G.P.0., Wellington, in about a month’s time. Phyl told him that a man called Ernie —hex- cousin—was responsible for hexcondition, although he knew he himself might have been responsible. He had thought this until he was told about Ernie.

In the latter part of his statement, Coats denied having interfered with the girl with a ‘view to bringing about a certain result. Certain remarks to Glover and Melville and certain actions in Glover’s presence had been in the nature of jokes. Coats admitted that his sense of what was a joke might be, regarded as peculiar. .Resuming his evidence, Detective Murray said that at the closing of the taking of the statement, Coats began to tremble very noticeably, and showed signs of nervousness. He asked fox- a drink of water, and one was brought to him. Coats said afterwards: “Well what are you gojug to do with me?” After they had

had lunch they all went to Coats’s room, where, under the bed, were two suitcases, which, Coats said, contained his personal effects. There were two letters also, which Coats said he had written ready for posting. Detective Murray produced the letters in’Court. In one of them, written to his sister, Coats had said that he had “got rid of Phyl,” and in the other, to his mother, he said that he had “got rid of that girl.” Detective Murray asked him what he had meant by those references, and'Coats said that it was just his way of saying they had parted. The Court adjourned at this stage until 10 a.m. to-morrow. FURTHER STATEMENTS. WELLINGTON, November 7. Coats’ trial entered upon the sixth day of hearing this morning. Resuming his evidence Chief Detective Murray produced a second statement made" by accused, who said that the girl left him on the night of June 26. He accompanied her up Adelaide Road nearly to John Street. The girl then told him that she did not want him to go further, and he left her. She did not say who or where she was going to. He gave her 10/-

In a third statement to witness, accused said he might have told De Maine and Glover he had tapped Phyllis on the back of the head, and that while she was unconscious he had performed an illegal operation on her. It was all said in joke. It was true he had told Glover that if Phyllis did die, there was a place at Hataitai, where hundreds of tons went over every day. He left Glover to draw his own conclusions, hut he said it jokingly. Detective Murray said that throughout his association with accused, there were occasions when Coats began to tremble violently and exhibit signs of nervousness. Murray’s evidence concluded the case for the Crown. ' CASE FOR DEFENCE. Counsel, for the defence, said he proposed to call evidence. Opening his case, he said that the country was about to hear for the first time accused’s explanation. In this respect, the case was perhaps unique. He asked where was the reason for Coats wanting to get rid of the girl. The Crown’s case.was wholly inadequate in this respect. (Proceeding).