CHARGE OF BOOKMAKING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 25

CHARGE OF BOOKMAKING.

A CHRISTCHURCH CASE. -

DETECTIVE PREPARED FOR

TROUBLE,

(Pep United Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, February 15, ■ The trial begau in the Supreme Court of Patrick Walsh and Robert Michael Cos on charges of bookmaking, Cos being further charged with interfering with the working of. the telephone in Walsh’s, when the police made the raid.

Mr O’Leary (of Wellington) represented the prisoners.

_ A detective described the finding of betting cards, etc., in the house. The Crown intimated that it did not desire a conviction against Cox in regard to interference with the telephone. Detective Sergeant Young was crossexamined at length by Mr O’Leary. “ What made you think there was an office there fitted up for bookmaking—- “ 1 had reasonable grounds for believing it, and I did believe it.”

Were you armed?—How do yon mean? With a firearm?—l had a combination axe and jemmy. For what purpose?—ln case 1 needed it. Evidence was given on the lines of that of the lower court.

No evidence was called' for the defence. His Honor, in his summing up, said that the question fpr the jury to determine was: Were Cox and Walsh actually carrying on the bookmaking business, or was the whole performance which followed the police raid merely a bi* of masquerade? That was the question that the whole thing boiled down to. If the jury were satisfied that all that material and all that paraphernalia found by the detectives just happeneu to be there; if Cox and Walsh just happened to he there in the circumstances found by the police; if the telephones just happened to be in the house; and if Walsh just happened to be excited when accosted—then the accused must be acquitted. He urged the jury to take that uncontradicted evidence as a whole and ask themselves what the accused were doing there. If they were satisfied that it was not a business, but just some sort of game, which his Honor suggested was incredible, then the accused were entitled to bo acquitted. The two men had been found in the house with a great deal of betting material. There was the fact of two telephones and, interference with the wires and subsequent messages about bets on races. It was the duty of the jury to discover what this pointed to. Cox was found not guilty. The jury were.unable to agree on the case against Walsh. •