DRAMATIC TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 19

DRAMATIC TRIAL

ACQUITTAL OF HOUSEMAN MURDER OF MAID AT SCHOOL ATTACK ON POLICE METHODS (From Our Own Correspondent?) SYDNEY, May 7. Dramatic scenes were witnessed at the East Maitland (N.S.W.) courthouse after the acquittal on a charge of murder of Leonard William Roberts, 33. After the jury had given its decision, Roberts was given an almost hysterical reception by a large crowd which had followed the trial with the closest attention. To conclude the trial, the judge had continued his summing-up after a dinner adjournment. When the jury returned at 8 o’clock, it asked him for further directions on the points of resemblance which the Crown claimed existed between Roberts and the murderer of the girl. These were given. The jury gave its verdict at 9.25. A crowd surged round as the constable unlocked the gate of the dock, and Roberts walked out, but it was kept back by the police. The crowd waited for hours outside the courthouse to see Roberts, but he remained in the rooms of his counsel until late at night; < •. There was an extraodinary incident in the courtroom earlier in the night. The lights failed, and the court had to be cleared in darkness. The jury, having been out for several hours, had returned to ask the judge for additional instructions, which the judge gave. As he walked out, and while Roberts was still standing in the. dock, all the lights went out, and the whole building was in darkness. There was an immediate rush of police and detectives to the dock to surround Roberts, As the court was cleared by the flickering lights of matches, a number of cigarettes could be seen glowing in the darkness. A sheriff’s officer groped his way up to the main switchboard and replaced the fuse. The lights went up to reveal a solid phalanx of policemen grouped about Roberts. Roberts seemed unconcerned. While the lights were out he had seized the opportunity to light a cigarette. Roberts, a houseman employed at a boys' boarding-school at Newcastle, had been charged with the murder in November of Dorothy Everett, a maid, at the school. Strangled to death, her mutilated and bitten body had been found in the school grounds early one Sunday morning after she had been known to enter the grounds about eight hours earlier. Roberts gave evidence at the inquest in January, when the coroner returned a finding of murder against a person unknown. In March the Crown took the unusual course of issuing an ex-ofncio indictment against Roberts, who was arrested and committed for trial.

The Crown Prosecutor described the evidence against Roberts as a “ web of circumstances.” The case rested principally on the alleged similarity of bites on Miss Everett to bites which the police asked Roberts to make on an apple and on a sergeant’s chest. Robert’s counsel made a dramatic appeal, in which a strong attahk on the detective methods apparently carried strong weight with the jury. He alleged that alterations had been made in statements which had been given by Roberts to a detectivesergeant, but which had not been typed out until eight days later. Some of these alterations had been vital. “ The evidence before the Coroner’s Court and the police evidence here fills one with foreboding,” said counsel. “One feels inclined to say: ‘ Thank God, I have never been in their hands’ The police force, as a whole, is a magnificent force; but in all bodies you will find some who are not so good. This is not just enthusiasm in a job. It is a marked and definite alteration of testimony on vital matters for the whole purpose of making the case blacker against this unfortunate man.”