PERJURY ALLEGED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21911, 21 September 1934, Page 14

PERJURY ALLEGED

CRIMINAL TRIAL SEQUEL CROWN WITNESS DEFENDANT PRIVATE PROSECUTION Allegations of perjury arising out of statements made on oath by the principal witness for the Crown in a criminal trial in Auckland Inst year were the subject of a private prosecution heard before Mr. W. I?. McKean, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday. The informations were laid by Robert Campbell, labourer (Mr. Field), against Bernard Francis Marie Bland, fitter, of Ohura (Mr. Allan Moody). The trial in which evidence was given by the defendant was that of Robert William Campbell, aged 37, inventor, and his wife, Mary Campbell, aged 30. who were jointly charged with unlawfully using an instrument or other means upon a woman, aged 24, whose death occurred at .Taumarunui. The two accused were found guilty and each was sentenced by Mr. Justice Smith on August 4, 1933, to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour. The malt prisoner is a son of the informant, . Robert Campbell.

In the case before the Court yesterday the defendant Bland was charged with -having committed wilful and corrupt perjury, in that ho knowingly falsely swore that he saw the car of Robert William Campbell at a house in Pencarrow Avenue, Mount Eden, on April 15, 1933; that ho saw and talked with Mary Campbell at the same address on the same date, and also on April 17, and that he did not see a Mrs. Browning in Auckland between April 14 and April 18, 1933. At the opening of the case the magistrate said it seemed extraordinary that tho proceedings had been brought so long after the trial.

Robert William Campbell, a prisoner in Mount Eden gaol, gave a detailed account of the movements of himself and his wife, which showed, he alleged, that the statements made by defendant were incorrect.

Cross-examined by Mr. Moody, witness said that in addition to his home in Seaview Road he had taken a house for his father in Pencarrow Avenue. No operations, as far as he knew, had ever been performed at either Seaview Road or at Pencarrow Avenue. On his behalf his counsel had petitioned the Gov-ernor-General apd appealed against his sentence. He had also applied for a new trial, but both had been refused. Evidence dealing with the movement* of the last witness and his wife was given by four other witnesses, including his wife, Mary Campbell, and his father, Robert Campbell. The hearing was adjourned until today. .