GRAVE CHARGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24834, 6 February 1942, Page 6

GRAVE CHARGES

LABOURER FOUND GUILTY (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Feb. 5. The hearing .of the charges against Frank Orr Peers, a labourer, aged 33, and Emma Joan McDiarmld, aged 18, of knowingly assisting a woman patient to escape from the Kingseat Mental Hospital on June 15 last, was continued in the Supreme Court to-day before Mr Justice Fair. Peers was further charged with having carnal knowledge at Wellington on June 22 of a woman detained under the provisions of the Mental Defectives Act. Detective Hogan read a statement by the accused stating that the whole affair was instigated by the young woman who had given evidence against him. Replying to Mr Aeklns (counsel for Peers) witness said he knew that Peers had been an inmate of a mental hospital. , , Mr Aeklns said he did not propose/to put Peers In the witness box. Mr Sullivan (counsel for McDiarmid) Intimated that he would call evidence from the accused, Emma Joan McDiarmld, who, he said, had .been duped by Peers. McDiarmid gave evidence on the lines of Mr Sullivan's statement. His Honor, summing up, said the evidence disclosed a very shocking and sad state of affairs with reference to two unfortunate women. He directed the jury, as a matter of law, that it was bound to acquit the accused McDiarmid because there was ho evidence against her that the law regarded as sufficient. In the case of Peers they had to find that he knowingly took part in the removal of a patient. The evidence against him on the second charge was uncorroborated. After a retirement of 40 minutes, the jury found McDiarmid not guilty, and she was discharged, and found Peers guilty on both counts. He was remanded for sentence.