MURDER TRIAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 4, 4 December 1931, Page 8

MURDER TRIAL

COATS CASE BEFORE APPEAL COURT.

Per Press Association

WELLINGTON, Dec. 4

After George Errol Coats was convicted of murdering Phillis Avis Symons, aged 17, his counsel requested that the trial Judge reserve for tho opinion of the Court of Appeal the following questions: Whether tho statement made by Coats to the police officer on July 6 was properly admitted in evidence at the trial; whether the trial Judge wrongly directed the jury in warning them that the life of the accused was not necessarily forfeit if lie was convicted of murder.

The request was granted and the Court of Appeal, consisting of Sir Michael Myers, Air Justice Adams, Air Justice Ostler and Air Justice Smith, is hearing argument on those questions to-day. Dealing with the first point, counsel for Coats, after reading the evidence of Detective Alurray, given at tho trial, submitted that the form nnd nature of the police investigation and the examination of Coats was such as to make the statement made by him whilst at the police station inadmissible. He contended that the conduct of the police in holding Coats from early in the morning until 1.15 the following morning was reprehensible. The statement extracted from him after a long wait at the police station was likely to be untrue and forced.