A WELLINGTON LIBEL CASE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIX, Issue 14682, 13 May 1908, Page 8

A WELLINGTON LIBEL CASE.

[Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, May 12, Defamatory libel was the nature of an offence for which Arthur Beeson came before Mr Justice Cooper to-day for sentence.

Mr Gray appeared for the prisoner, and stated that his client was charged with publisliing a defamatory libel against William James Pollock, at one time a clerk in a Government office. The libel was alleged to be contained in a letter written by Beeson to Mr Hayes, head of the Department in which Pollock was employed. In the letter containing the alleged libel he observed that the honour of the Civil Service, of which Pollock was a temporary member, was involved, and demanded that a searching inquiry should be 'made into the allegations. No inquiry was made, because Pollock said he intended to take proceedings. He was either allowed or asked to resign. Criminal proceedings followed, and the prisoner was committed for trial. Beeson pleaded justification, and took upon himself the onus that the charges were true. His Honor would recall that at the trial evidence of a damaging description on Pollock's character was given and not contradicted. In the end his Honor put issues to the jury, and in respect of these issues the jury found that two of the charges were true. Included i;j the evidence at the trial there were some letters of Pollock's containing boasts of his influence over girls, of his immoral dealing with women and other matters. Notwithstanding all the evidence at the trial, Pollock did not go into the box to submit himself to cross-examination. He liad never denied any, of the charges that Beeson had made against him. The maximum penalty was twelve months' imprisonment. Counsel submitted that his client should either be admitted to probation or convicted and ordered to como up for 'sentence when called upon. Evidence as to the prisoner's moral character was given by Mr J. G. W. Aitken, M.P., Professor Kirk and the Rev T. H. Sprott. Mr Wilford, for the prosecutor, Pollock, said that the evidence as to conduct showed what malicious acts a respectable man could do. The only point he wished to emphasise was: Did the defendant do this in the public interest or in malice? Beeson had written to Pollock on one occasion, saying no one understood the science of strategy and the technicalities of revenge better than he did, and along these iines Pollock would be completely outmanceuvred and outwitted at every turn. Counsel alleged that Beeson had done all he had done maliciously. He pleaded justification. The statute said that if justification was pleaded and was not proved then the Court must consider whether or not the action had not been aggravated by the plea. His Honor stated that in this case he repeated what he said at the trial, that the conduct of the prosecutor was of the worst possible description, shown by his own letters and tho fact that the jury had found one of the graver charges established, that Pellock was a man whose conduct was such that it was utterly impossible to keep him employed in a public office where girls were likely to associate with him. At the same time his Honor said to the jury, and he said now, that the prisoner was acting from mixed motives, that there was evidence in his letters of a strong personal feeling against Pollock which did not arise entirely out of a feeling of abhorrence at his moral character, but there was also in his mind a desire, mixed with the desire of ill feeling against Pollock, to' purify tho public service. Tho jury found that one of the charges of gross immorality was not proved. Another, however, was proved. Had the prisoner been content to have rested his charge to Mr Hayes upon the circumstances involved in this proved charge. and had the jury found that it was not for the public benefit that these matters should have been published, he would have granted a new trial. Where a prisoner's guilt was aggravated by his plea of justification his Honor must look at the fact that the jury established the fact that the prosecutor was an immoral man who had been guilty of an attempted criminal assault upon a person not actually a blood relation but a person closely connected with him by marriage, and at a time when he was employed at an office where there wore young girls. In determining that punishment should be inflicted his Honor said the prisoner must take the consequences of his act and he had no hesitation in saying that whatever may have been the dominant motive the consequences of his act had been in the public interest but he had been convicted and properly convicted, against the Act of 1001.. He would deal with tho case in this way. He believed that the prisoner's act had produced a good result, It had resulted in a public office being purified of a man who would no longer be a menace to the morality of a public office. His Honor would fine the prisoner 20s. Ho thought that was a punishment which indicated that the priso-ner had committed a breach of the law in making bis statements too wide. It also indicated that the man whose action resulted in the public good would not be punished severely because he had overstepped the mark. Ho had to take into consideration all tho circumstances of the rase. His Honor then raised the question of costs and snid that the plea of justification had been part proved and part disproved. It was clear that prisoner cculd not get costs unless he was acquitted entirely. Tho ?m----ount was eventually fixed at five guineas and the prisoner was discharged on Mr Gray undertaking to pay the money.

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