WAS SHE A YOUNG FLIRT?

NZ Truth, Issue 994, 13 December 1924, Page 5

WAS SHE A YOUNG FLIRT?

A Wife's Instinct

And the Tragedy of Motherhood at

Fifteen.

(From "Truth's" Blenheim Rep.) After a somewhat protracted hearing- at the Supreme Court at Blenheim, a well-known JEarmer named Richard Titus Cragg was -acquitted, on a charge of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl" aged 15 years and two months. The case aroused considerable attention throughout Marlborough, as the accused man is very widely known. He is about 38 years of age, is married, and tuis one child, a, little boy, aged six years. _ . When Cragg made his initial ap r pearance before the Justices a fortnight ago they refused to grant bail, and he has spent the in tervening- days m the lock-up at Pic tori. He appeared m the Supreme Court looking well and hearty after his stay at the seaside, and he took the first opportunity to plead not guilty m no uncertain voice. He was represented by Mr. T. F. Relling, while the Crown, Prosecutor, Mr,. C. H. Mills, appeared for the Crown. At the instigation of ., Mr. Justice Hosking the case . wa§ g heard behind closed doors, and the ancients who had assembled for. a couple of days' entertainment on. the! sordid details which can be expected m cases of. this sort had 'to' make a regretful departure. LITTLE 'CORROBORATION.. The accusation against the accused was that he had interfered with the girl on 'or about July 1 last,, but the lass deposed that he had interfered with, her on half a dozen different occasions, dating back to Easter of last year, when, during a visit by her parents to Wellington, 'her little sister and herself stayed at Cragg' s place. This evidence was admitted as showing corroboration of the, girl's story of his alleged offences m June or July of this year, 'but it was made clear to the jury: that they were to ignore f the evidence^ of these early: "acts," as his Honor called them, or at least were not to regard the evidence as evidence of an offence, for the reason that the law ■' m these cases provides that a prosecution must be commenced within nine months of an alleged offence, or not at all. ■In the upshot there was no corroboration of the girl's story beyond medical evidence that she will be a mother m. four or five months' time, . and that of her parents, which was. only of a general nature and did not help her story. much. : ' . The ; accused then 1 got m the box and strenuously denied the allegations against him, and he was backed, up by his wife, who professed to be m a position to know. that her husband had never had :any opportunity to be alone with the girl. When pressed to give her reasons for, this : assertion,; she said that she had taken an 1 instinctive dislike to the girl when she went to stay with them,, and had made it her business to see that she was never alone with the accused, though she did not mistrust her husband. SHE HUNG; ON HIS EVERY WORD. The Crown Prosecutor : You say, though, .that you mistrusted the girl. Had you any special i-eason for that? "When she came to us," replied witness, amid trie amazement of those m Court, "she would hang on every word .he said, and I am sure she was trying; to flirt with him!" : • . You say that seriously, though you know that the girl was not 14 years of age. at that time?— She told me she was 15. ' . . ' Well, even so, did this flirting make you jealous?— Oh, dear ho. I trust my husband. : Then what made you mistrust her? — It; w hard to say. Perhaps it was instinct.;, .. : ■ Did you tell her mother of it?— No. .On^the contrary, you told her mother she . had been -a very good girl, and that you had got on well together?— I may have .said something like that. . Counsel for the accused drew attention to the slender nature of the corroboration of ► the girl's.;main story and pointed out that, m an ordinary affiliation case, the law demanded that there should- be corrbboratiqn of the story. He urged that if that were deemed necessary m such comparatively trivial matters, how . much more necessary was it m a serious case such as this. , VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY. In the . course of his address to the jury, the Crown Prosecutor admitted that the corroboration of the girl's story ;was not as strong as it might be, and,* m summing up, his Honor also stressed the/point and said that unless the jury believed the girl's story to be unassailable, they should "give the accused the .benefit of the doubt. They should also acquit him if they believed his version of the happenings. "■> The net result of all this was that the jury returned m less than half an hour, with a verdict of not guilty, and the accused was discharged.