SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18861, 14 May 1923, Page 11

SUPREME COURT

(Before his Honor Mr Justice Sim.) Saturday, Mat 12.

The case against Janies Booth Kerr and Donald Henry Campbell of robbery with violence and of theft from Samuel Carling was concluded.

Neither of tho accused chose to give evidence, but Kerr said that he wished t 6 call Alexander MTCUtorick, barman at the Empire Hotel, who stated that, although he had been on duty on the afternoon of the alleged offence he did not remember serving Carling. Nor did he remember rolling up any bottles of beer. Kerr addressed the jury lor 20 minutes, speaking logically and clearly. He declared that if a conviction was returned on the testimony of a man like Carling it would lie unsafe for a decent man to walk the streets. The Crown had not produced any evidence in support of the charge, and as it was clear that Carling had been drunk —although ho had the audacity to say that he was sober after a dozen drinks—and it was surely right that corroboration should bo considered necessary under the circumstances. Kerr expressed wonderment that Edgar was to be found. Hero was a supposedly respectable citizen who, after going out of his way to have other people arrested, disappeared. Carling was obviously not an intelligent man, and he admitted having told untruths in the court.

In summing up the judge said that the case for the Crown rested almost entirely upon the evidence of Carling, And it was not necessary that it should be corroborated in any way. In a case like the present it was quite open for the jury, to convict on the evidence of the one person who alleged that he had been robbed. So tho question w’ns one almost entirely confined to tho credibility of Carling. If the jury was satisfied that Carling was not a reliable witness they should give the accused the benefit of the doubt and acquit them. Carling had evidently been 1 going from hotel to hotel nil the day, and it might be that bis recollections were not reliable at all. Regarding the man called , Edgar, •it was strange that, although he was so zealous in the course of justice that he laid the complaint to the police and identified the two accused, ho did not attend to give evidence in the Lower Court on his, being subpoenaed. and that, despite the efforts of the police to locate him since, he was not there to give evidence that day. The case, then, was not a satisfactory one in that it relied entirely on the evidence of Carling, who must have been somewhat muddled with drink, and because Edgar, whose evidence would have-been so important, could not be found. The jury took 30 minutes to return -with a verdict of not guilty.