SUPREME COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 August 1924, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

SERIOUS OFFENCES ALLEGED. Charges alleging a series of serious offences by Robert Ballantyne Barnett against his fourteen-year-old daughter «ere investigated in the Supreme Court at New Plymouth on Wednesday afternoon, before the Chief Justice, \ir Robert. Stout. Three specific '■ charges of incest were laid, and one of attempted incest, covering a period from December, 1922, to June, 1924. Mr. C. H. Weston conducted the prosecution, and Mr. C. H. Croker appeared tor the accused, who pleaded not guilty ; on all counts. . The court was cleared for the liearin o>. and all witnesses were exeludeduntil required. •Several witnesses were called in support of the girl’s story, though there was no direct corroborative evidence. Counsel for the accused ,Jiad opened the case for the defence, in which it was intimated that an alibi would be set up as a defence to certain of the allegations, when the court adjourned until yesterday morning. On resuming yesterday morning Mr. Croker put in the depositions talten in the lower court, as part of the case for the defence. The wife of the accused gave evii.n?e. i ll the direction of proving an alibi in respect of certain dates in the indictment. Under cross-examination she said that the girl’s mind had been poisoned against her parents and her home bj the influence of the woman with whom she had been engaged in domestic service. In reply to Mr. \\ eston the witness said she could not understand ivhat had made her daughi 6l ' Z, SUch serious charges against her father, unless it was that she wanted to get away from home and 1 lave her oivn freedom. She suggested that the woman with whom her daimlifcer hved had had a good deal to "do with the laying of the charges against the accused. She had been led to say what was not true about things that had never happened. Several other witnesses were called to disprove statements made by the pnncipal witness for the Crown, much of the evidence being characterised by 111 s Honor as irrelevant. lhe hearing was still unfinished when the court adjourned.—Herald.