INDECENT ASSAULT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20870, 9 November 1929, Page 14

INDECENT ASSAULT.

INDIAN DOCTOR FOUND GUILTY. RECOMMENDATION TO MBROT. (Special to Dailt Times.) AUCKLAND, November 8. A verdict of guilty was returned by the jury at the conclusion of the trial of the Indian medical practitioner, Dr Balder Singh Share, aged 48 [Mr Singer and Mr M‘Livcr) before Mr Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court tbjs evening. After a retirement of three and threequarter hours the jury gave a finding which was not accepted by the judge, and it again returned to consider the case, returning a quarter of au hour later with a verdict that the prisoner was guilty of indecent assault upon a female. The jury added a recommendation to mercy on the ground that, in its opinion, the prisoner was a sexual pervert. After a trial lasting two days the jury retired at 5.10 p.m. Shortly before 9 o’clock it returned. “Wo find the prisoner guilty as a menace to society,” the foreman stated when asked by the registrar for the verdict. “ I do not know exactly what that, means,” said the judge. “ The verdict must be guilty or not guilty.” “ After considerable discussion wc decided to put the verdict in that form,” the foreman said. “Ifit is not acceptable to you it means wc shall have to deliberate further.” JSis Honor, to Mr Meredith, the Crown Prosecutor: What have yon to say? ' Mr Singer: Perhaps I have the first right of say. Mr Meredith: I understand the verdict is one of guilty. 1 His Honor: It is either guilty or not guilty. “ As counsel for the accused,” said Mr Singer, “ it is obvious I must feel this, and I must place before the court this view: That if this man is a menace to society, and he may be—” The judge: That is not the point. The question is what does this verdict mean? It: is ; a matter of law, Mr Singer. It docs not seem to be to a verdict at all. Upon the. judge's direction the jury again retired. . A quarter of au hour later it returned with a verdict that the accused was guilty. A recommendation to mercy was made, the foreman stating that in the opinion of the jury the accused was a sexual pervert. In discharging the jury his Honor remarked that it had carried out a difficult task during a long trial. Sentence was deferred until Monday morning. ‘ ' The accused, in evidence to-day, gave his medical qualifications gained ■at Brussels, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Liverpool. He had been registered in New Zealand for nearly 10 years. The accused said that he used a common room, the main door of which could not he locked from the inside. On September 26 he saw the girl who had made the complaint against him looking into his room. . She said she was looking for Dr Share, and he replied that he was Dr Share. When she came in and sat down he left the door half open. The girl did not give an indication that she had seen another doctor before. Witness detailed a conversation he had had with the girl prior to his making a general examination of her, and described the examination ha made. He denied having done anything improper. In the course of conversation he spoke, to her of his hobby of photography, and explained some stereoscopic slides which ho had. No objectionable photographs were there. The photographs of which the police afterwards took possession the possession of an Indian friend on September 26, and were returned to him three days later. The accused said that he did not mention to the girl about the. fee, as she was going back. The door was half open all the time. As he went to leave just afterwards he saw|Dr Brockway talking to her in a whisper. The accused was annoyed and said: “I have attended to the girl .and given her the necessary papers. What are you doing now?” Dr Brockway said that she was his patient, but the accused said that she had asked for him and was his patient. When referred to, the girl said: “I. asked to see Dr Share.” Later, Dr Brockway passed-him and said with a grin: “ Hard, isn’t ■ it, to do the work and not get the insurance money? ” Witness replied: “How did it happen?” Dr Brockway said: “ That blessed plate of yours Ith the door. Take it down.” The accused said that some of the objectionable photographs had been given to him by a drunken returned soldier who had no money with which to pay him. He kept them out of curiosity.. Others came from Paris, where they were quite common. “There must be plenty of them in the .town,” he said. The bathing girl photographs were from America. He was under the impression that as long as he. did not show the photographs he was entitled to have them. Dr Brockway might possibly have seen the improper photographs, as he had sometimes shown him photographs when they were on speaking terms. “ Absolutely nothing improper took place. I assert that on my oath before God,” the accused said, replying to Mr Meredith, The accused said that he gotsome of the photographs when he was a student in Paris about 20 years ago. He sorted out the photographs into Parisian, American and English groups and those of his own taking. These latter, he said, were such as would be found in any medical book. Mr Meredith: If these are to be found in any medical book was there, any necessity for you to take them ? The accused: I might write a book. I am only getting this collection to choose from for purely scientific purposes. The accused said the friend to whom ho lent some of the pictures was an Indian barber and was interested in them merely as pictures. Mr Meredith: I put it that outsidetheir scientific interest they are absolutely disgusting? The accused: To an ordinary man they would he. Mr Meredith: And they would be' to the barber. The accused: Some people like one thing and some people like another. My wife asked me to burn them, but I said “No; they can remain.” His Honor: Did you show these to your wife? The accused; There is nothing private between husband and wife. The accused went on to volunteer the explanation that he found some satisfaction in keeping the photographs as a good answer to a book like “ Mother India,” which contained aspersions on Indian women. “It was-a reply, in my mind,” he said.. “ These things are not possible to be got in India. Really it was silly. I admit that.” Under pressure, the accused admitted having shown some bad photographs hurriedly to the girl patient. One was handed up to his Honor, causing him to ask: “ Are you in the habit of showing that kind of photograph to your women, patients?” The,accused replied: No, your Honor. Asked by Sir Meredith why he insulted the girl with such pictures the accused answered: “Why did she not object? She was pleased with them and thanked me for showing them.” Mr Singer; Photographs of that kind are to be obtained in countless thousands on the continent?—Yes. Mr Singer: You know that a very large percentage of the returned soldiers had these photographs?—Yes. Kanji Dullajh, the Indian hairdresser

referred, to, said, he knew the accused and his wife. Smiling, witness said he had asked Dr Share for some “ rude ’’ photographs, and after some refusals Dr Share consented. From a bundle of the photographs witness sorted , out a selection. Others he had in his possession from September 22 to September 29. Evidence that she had been present at many examinations made, by Dr Share was given by Dorothy Grace Perry, w r ho had been a nurse at his rooms for 12 months. “He was always a gentleman in every way,” she said, “ attentive, gentle, respectful, and sympathetic.” After luncheon, the foreman of the jury said that they would like to know why Dr Brockway had not been called. His Honor: I do not think that we can discuss that now. At any rate, Mr Foreman, Mr Singer said that he would have something to say about that mat: ter, before the case closed. Addressing the jury, Mr Singer described the case as one of the most difficult that had .come before the court. But for those dreadful photographs not a police officer would have prosecuted and not a juryman would convict. How’ did those photographs affect the charge made by the Crown? Outside the photographs there -was a case - against the accused, who was not charged with' displaying the photographs. Had some influence been brought to bear upon the girl subsequently? Mr Meredith said that Mr Singer, with the greatest cleverness, had used the weapon of vilification without the slightest justification. His address had been a virulent attack on an innocent girl. If they were satisfied that the girl’s story was true and well supported they had a duty to discharge to the girl and to the public by their.verdict. _ Summing up, his Honor said that in New Zealand the,public generally, with good reason, had unbounded confidence in the integrity and honesty of members of the medical profession. Cases of a breach of that confidence were very rare rt was necessary that the jury should make up its mind as to the character of the principal witness put forward by the Crown? Did she leave the impression that she was truthful? His Honor drew attention to the improper nature df remarks admittedly made by the accused to the girl. Undoubtedly some of the photographs, if they -were shown to the girl, were scandalous and shocking beyond expression. With regard to some that the accused admitted showing her, they must ask themselves if any decent human being would show them to any respectable girl. Reference had been' made to Dr Brockway, but he did not see that Dr Brockway had anything to do with the case at aIL