SUPREME COURT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 131, 4 May 1934, Page 2

SUPREME COURT

CHARGE OF BREAKING AND ENTERING. VERDICT OF GUILTY. In the Supreme Court at Palmerston North, yesterday, before His Honour Mr Justice Fair, tho case was concluded in which Joseph Henry Lewis was charged with breaking and entering the premises of the Dominion Auctioneering Company on September 10 and stealing therefrom a radio set and a short-wave converter of a total value of £39. An alternative charge was that he stole tho set and the wave converter. Mr H. R. Cooper conducted the case for the Crown and Mr T. F. Rolling appeared for accused, who had pleaded not guilty. The jury retired at 2.35 p.m. anfj at 7.30 p.m. returned a verdict of guilty on the first charge. Accused was re; manded for sentence. Addressing the jury, Mr Relling said that Hands and Towler were the only two witnesses who had given any direct evidence. The jury was asked to believe that when lie knew he was under suspicion accused, had gone to Towler and had told him a number of incriminating facts. They had to be satisfied that the evidence of any accomplices was good and sound and it had to be strongly corroborative. Hands’s evidence was not enough, and the corroboration by Towler was not sufficient, counsel contended, as it had been altered from what it had been in the Lower Court. The case evolved on whether the Crown witnesses were perjurers or whether they were reliable, said the Crown Prosecutor. The jury were quite entitled to convict a prisoner on the evidence of an accomplice alone. The reason given by accused for any perjury on the part of Crown witnesses was that they thought accused had “put Hands away.” But, even if he had done so, he must have known all about it. In addressing the jury, His Honour said the charges were quite simple. There was no need to consider the sec. ond charge if they found accused guilty on the first one. They need not concern themselves with distinguishing between the radio set and the converter. The only, question the jury was really concerned with was whether accused had assisted Hands in the theft, for which Hands had already been sentenced. If the jury had any doubt as to tho matter, then accused had to be acquitted. In law a jury wa.s warned against accepting the evidence of one accomplice, hut in this case that did not arise as they would be able to consider not only the evidence of Hands, but also certain evidence of a corroborative nature. They had to consider the surrounding circumstances, such as accused’s relations with Hands. There were two classes of evidence, direct evidence and indirect. Direct evidence was that of Hands. Towler’s evidence strongly corroborated Hands’s evidence in some regards, but, said His Honour, he had to direct the jury to take no notice of Towler’s manner of fixing of the date on which he saw Hands. But his description of seeing Hands and _ seeing accused fixed the date sufficiently. Anyone who saw a. man riding a cycle, with a package, on a Sunday morning early, was likely to remember it. Direct evidence of a second-class character was Towler’s evidence of accused’s admissions to him. Rice’s evidence also made the same_ assertions. There was another factor in that accused approached Rice and asked him to modify his evidence. He also approached Towler. If accused’s evidence were true at least four witnesses had committed perjury—Towler, Rice, Elands and Mrs Hands.