SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 7 June 1923, Page 7

SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS.

MISSIONARY AND GIRLS

(BY TELEGRAPH —VBVSS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, June 7. At the Police Court Abraham Alfred Lincl, missionary, was charged with rape on three counts and indecent "assault. Mr. Adams, the Crown Prosecutor, said the offences related to three girls. The defence might be that there was effective consent to the act, but the Crown alleged that the circumstances negatived any genuine consent. The accused had been conducting.a mission and purported, amongst other things, to have the gift of healing. It was in connection with these meetings that he came into contact with the girls concerned. The proceedings at the meetings were of an emotional nat- > ure and the conditions were akin to ■ hypnotism. j Mr. Call an, for the defence, repudii ated the line suggested by Mr. Adams, ! stating that they denied that there was anything in the story at "all. The mother of one girl gave evidence

on the charges made against Lind at the meeting, which he denied, but she

told him he was not innocent, for she knew what her daughter had told her. A girl of 20 deposed to being assaulted in a room in her parents' house, the accused representing this as treatment for nerves. Another girl deposed to an pffenoe being committed against her. She had a feeling of complete helplessness.