JUDGE BELIEVES IT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 6 August 1928, Page 5

JUDGE BELIEVES IT

STORY OF CHIEF WITNESS

ACCUSED; ACQUITTED

(By Telegraphi—Press Association)

AUCKLAND, 3rd August. Some' outspoken comment was made by Mr Justice Reed in the Supreme Court in the case in which Alexander 'Henry Mar.tin, aged 26, a former law clerk, was charged with indecently assaulting a male. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, the foreman stating that the jury ;W ; as dissatisfied with the lapse of time between the date of -the information being laid and the date of the statement . taken from the boy concerned. , ■ -‘Prisoner, the jury has found you not guilty,” said his Honour. ‘‘They perhaps do not know you were tried fast February for ajmost the same offence on a hoy in very much the same circumstances as the present. 1 Of course, you were found not guilty then, and you have been found not guilty to-day, but a pitcher may go to the well too often.' I strongly advise you not to carry boys about in your motor car in future, because a third jury may not be quite so friendly.” Asking the toy who had been the principal witness to stand up, his Honour said: “I think you behaved exceedingly well in connection with the matter. You did a duty to the public in reporting a case such as this. lam sure tiie fact that the jury has found the prisoner not guilty does not express any view of theirs that your story is untrue. They simply think that through lapse' of time some mistakes have been made, but should anyone suggest that your story is untrue you have the assurance that the Judge who presided believed your story.”