JURY DISAGREES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 192, 29 July 1932, Page 8

JURY DISAGREES

DEFAMATORY LIBEL CHARGE ACCUSED TO BE RETRIED. HIS HONOUR EEFUSES BAIL. Wellington, July 28. The jury failed to agree in the Supreme Court to-day in the case in which George Budd and Ernest Frederick Thompson were charged with publishing a defamatory libel of Police Inspector Lander. His Honour ordered a new trial to take place on Monday. Bail was refused. After further evidence had been heard in the afternoon, counsel for the accused said that the astonishing thing was that the Magistrate had ever permitted a prosecution for criminal libel. Inspector Lander had his remedy through civil action for libel. The Crown Prosecutor said that the law of criminal libel had been brought in only in 1901 because it had been found necessary to restrain irresponsible and dangerous persons from libelling men in public positions.

His Honour described the case as a comparatively simple one. The statements against Inspector Lander were that he was a liar; that he had perjured himself and that he had attacked defenceless men and women. It was open to the defence to seek to prove that the statements were true, but they had not done so. If these words had been published it would be absurd and impossible to suggest that they were not defamatory. The main defence was that these two men were not responsible for the publication and distribution of the paper, but there was direct evidence of two police officers implicating Thompson, and the name of Budd was at the bottom of the paper. The real question was: Is this defamatory libel referring to Inspector Lander? After a 3}-hours' retirement the jury returned to ask whether, if a verdict of publishing was found against Budd and of distributing against Thompson, both would be equally guilty. His Honour replied that if Budd published libel he was guilty, and if Thompson distributed a libellous document he also was guilty. The impossibility of reaching an agreement was reported by the foreman after a retirement of 4J hours.

His Honour discharged the jury and said that the accused would be retried on Monday.

“No, I won’t allow them bail,” he told counsel. “They can stay where they are.”