DECISION RESERVED IN BOS MURPHY DEFAMATION CASE

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1947, Page 3

DECISION RESERVED IN BOS MURPHY DEFAMATION CASE

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 25. Mr A. M. Goulding, S.M., today reserved decision at the finish of the' hearing of a claim for damages by Bos Murphy, boxer, against William Matthew Brosnan,James Russell Simpson, and Alfred Stanley Parker for alleged libel. The hearing' lasted 10 days arid a half, and was spread over six weeks. The Magistrate said today that he' would not listen to a play-back of a broadcast of the fifth round of the first' Jones-Murphy fight, as he would' be' listening attentively for a bnll in ari atmosphere completely different to that at the actual fight. Mr R. E. Harding, one of the counsel for Murphy,- continuing his address this morning, said that Brosnan’s whole course of action showed malice and ulterior motive, referring 'to the “extreme assiduity” with .which he had cultivated Jones. The New Zealand Boxing Council’s published statement on March 8 suppressed the' fact that Murphy had been suspended 1 for failure to attend before the council, and left an inference that he had been suspended for disgraceful conduct. Counsel suggested that the statement had been deliberately put in that form to punish Murphy. If the council had honestly believed Murphy was guilty, then members had been malicious because they had not heard him in his own defence. They had refused Murphy’s reiterated request to set up a judicial tribunal. Mr Harding suggested that the announcement that the Jones-Stevens fight was off was a cut by the Boxing Council at the Hutt Valley Boxing Association. There was no way under the rules of the council for Retaliating against the association except that a full meeting of the New Zealand Boxing Association could have expelled the Hutt Valley Association “which would have impoverished” the council to no mean extent. . Mr Harding said that no witness for the defendants had seemed able to put himself in Murphy’s position regarding the welterweight belt, and that every one of them had thought it perfectly fair for the Boxing Council to try Murphy. “In general, they regarded Murphy as an insubordinate yourig. whelp,” said Mr Harding. He wouldn’t come before them. It nact never happened before.” . Of Jones, Mr Harding said: “Whichever way you look at him. the truth is not in him. Why were not Bill and Roy Brien, Jack McCann, Koolman, Connors, Jones s trainer, Watson, the timekeeper, Bobby Fuller, and Mr Herd not called in corroboration?” he . asked. “Surely the story has nothing in itseli or in the people who put it forward to commend it.”