COURT NEWS

Grey River Argus, 23 May 1942, Page 6

COURT NEWS

CHRISTIAN PACIFIST. [Per Press Association.! WELLINGTON, May 21. A verdict of guilty of attempting to publish a subversive statement was returned by a "jury before whom Archibald Charles Barrington, honorary secretary, of the Christian Pacifist Society, was tried. There were alternative counts of publishing and attempting to publish. Sentence was postponed, prisoner to remain in custody in the meantime. Barrington conducted his own defence. The Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, said he would state a case for the Court of Appeal, if desired, on three points of law that had arisen. The first was whether the Crown had discharged its .onus of proof that accused published the document. Accused submitted that the Crown had not. The second question was whether certain periodicals published in England and sold in Nev/ Zealand were admissible. Accused was prevented from showing these to the jury as evidence of the atmosphere in which the society’s bulletin was published, although he quoted freely from them in his address to the jury. The third point arose from His Honour’s summing up, as to whether there was evidence of an attempt to publish a subversive statement. His Honour had directed the jury that there was.