FAILURE TO AGREE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 139, 16 May 1925, Page 5

FAILURE TO AGREE.

CHARGE AGAINST MOUAT.

NEW TRIAL ORDERED.

Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, May 15.

The trial of Mouat on the charge of murdering his wife was concluded at the Supreme Court this evening.

In his address to the jury, Mr C. S. Thomas, counsel for the defence, said thero was no e\ idence that Mrs Mouat was dead and no direct evidence that sho was murdered. A chain of circumstantial evidence had been forged around Mouat, but a chain was as strong as its weakest link and no stronger. The bones obviously were human bones, but they took the case not one inch further. It could not be said that because they were found on the section there had been a murder. The place where they were found was a rubbish dump and the bones might hu,ve been left by Maoris, who in the late ’sixties, or ’seventies, trekked between the two pahs and fished for eels in the Ileathcow ,'fiver which ran near Mount’s section.

Mr Thomas continued by staling. that the Crown Prosecutor hud suggested that if Mrs Mouat was alive, she would have conio back to protect Mouat in his terrible position, but if she- had gone away with another man every statement made by Mouat tallied. Ti e /rue and cry was not raised until fourteen days after her disappearance. If she. went off in that way, she probably was not in this country and was not in touch with what was happening here. One witness had said Mrs Mouat had suffered from a recurrence of fever contracted in South Africa and was depressed and melancholy. How could it be said that sho did not commit suicide? The Crown had failed to prove any motive whatever and it must not be forgotten that the Crown had found it impossible to reconstruct the crime. “If this man is hanged,” Mr Thomas concluded, “and six months after, Mrs Mouat returns from South Africa, what will ycur feelings be? Sir John Demiiston in this Court often said that it was much better for 100 guilty men to escape than for on© innocent person to bo declared guilty. That surely is common justice. Remember, that if you find Mouat guilty, you .find him possessed of anatomical skill and dexterity of which thero is no evidence whatever. I put it to you that his guilt is impossible, and that you know it is.” In bis summing up, Mr Justice Adams said the first question to be decided was whether Mrs Mouat was dead, and secondly had she met her death at the hands of her husband ? A good deal had been heaad during the hearing of the easo on the question of circumstantial evidence and in this connection, His Honour read the opinion of an eminent English jurist, showing that such evidence had an important bearing when direct evidence was not forthcoming. It was the rule that a man was innocent until proved guilty and the jury had to be satisfied that such was. the case before they found accused guilty. A statement had been made by Mouat that his wife had on one occasion loft him for another man, but it was the duty of His Honour to point out there ws.si no evidence that such was the ease. It had been suggested that Mrs Mouat had suffered from low spirits and had threatened to commit suicide, but it had to be remembered that the evening before her disappearance she was in her usual spirits. Respecting the discovery of the bones. His Honour said the Crown claimed that the discovery of the bones, in the circumstances in which they had been found and iu the places in which they were found, amounted to a demonstration of conclusive guilt. The question of tho disposal of the body was not solved, nor was that of whether or not a lethal weapon was used. Tho Crown did not claim that the whole of the body had been destroyed by fire, but that a portion of it bad been burnt. The jury retired at 6.20 p.m., but had tea, and commenced consideration of the verdict at about 8 p.m. Just before midnight the jury returned and announced that it was unable to agree A new trial was fixed for August 6.