SOLDIER ACQUITTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24949, 23 June 1942, Page 2

SOLDIER ACQUITTED

ALLEGED OFFENSIVE LETTER USE OF SCIENTIFIC TESTS (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 22. The use of various scientific tests, including photography and ultra-violet rays, on a sample of handwriting in the course of a search for some soldier who allegedly wrote and sent an offensive letter to a senior officer of the Southern Military District was described to-day when Acting Lance-corporal Charles Edward Reardon faced a court-martial. Reardon was acquitted on a charge of conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he wrote and addressed to a senior officer an unsigned letter couched in offensive and insubordinate language. Summing up, the judge advocate, Major G. T. Weston, advised that the accused be found not guilty. He said there was insufficient evidence of publication by the accused. The envelope had not been produced, and there was no evidence save that of Colonel K. J. Walker, which was objected to, in regard to the receiving and opening of the letter. The principal witness was Secondlieutenant R. J. G. Collins, who, m civil life is among other things a handwriting expert. He said he had examined 200 or 300 samples of handwriting taken from men of a certain section of a military camp and compared them with the letter. He had examined each separately, but he was not absolutely sure that the one which, he had selected was that of the same man who wrote the letter. He had asked, therefore, for a further sample. Witness said that 10 to 12 marked personal similarities estabHshed the relationship of two pieces of writing generally, but in the present case there had been 20 noticeable similarities and no points of dissimilarity could be found.. "I concluded that without doubt the same person wrote the three exhibits and I am satisfied that there is only one person in the world who could have written the letter," added witness.