CHILD’S PATERNITY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11954, 26 May 1933, Page 7

CHILD’S PATERNITY

APPEAL COURT CASE

-MOTHERS EVIDENCE INADMISSIBLE

NEW TRIAL ORDERED

(Press Association) WELLINGTON. Alay 25. •The Court of Appeal fo-dav delivered reserved judgment in the ease of Rex v Frederick Seaton and Rita Isabel Seaton. Separate judgments were prepared by each member of the court.

me Chief Justice, Sir Al.ichau-I Myers, Air Justice Reed, and Air Justice MacGregor, held that the evdeuee of the mother of the female accused, as it tended to bastardise the female accused, was wholly inadmissible.

Air Justice Smith considered that some of the evidence was admissible and some inadmissible. Air Justice Ostler, differing from the other members off t-lie court held that all that evidence was admissible on the ground that the sole issue involved was whether the .male accused way the father of the female accused, and not whether the female accused was illegitimate. ’

A majority of the court also held that though the mother’s evidence was inadmissible, there was other evidence of the crime 'to Lie submitted to the jury, the value and weight ol which was a matter for them, and therefore, the conviction should not bo quashed, but a new trial, instead, should he ordered.

A case was slatted for opinion by M r Justice Herd-man, as to whether certain evidence should have been admitted at the criminal trial held at Auc-k land in February. At- this trial the accused were indicted ou four charges of incest. The Grown led evidence of tbje mother of the female accused to show the latter’s father was Frederick William Seaton. Objection was taken to this evidence, and the question of admissibility was referred to the Court of Appeal.