MAREO CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26114, 29 March 1946, Page 6

MAREO CASE

APPEAL COURT HEARING EVIDENCE IN ENGLAND (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Mar. 28. The Court of Appeal to-day commenced the hearing of applications on behalf of Eric Mareo for the calling of further witnesses to produce statements and declarations. Mareo was convicted of the murder of his wife in Auckland in 1935 and was again convicted in 1936 when a. new trial had been granted. His sentence of death was commuted to life imprisonment. A petition on his behalf was heard by the Statutes Revision Committee of the House of Representatives in 1942 and resulted in no recommendation being granted. A second petition in 1943 had the same result. A third petition in 1944 was adjourned, and has not been proceded with. The present application is supported by Mr A. C. A Sexton,, of Auckland, and the Crown is represented by Mr V. R. Meredith, Crown solicitor in Auckland.

Mr Meredith stated to-day that the Crown was prepared to put in for examination by the Court statements made to the police by Freda Starke and Graham Mareo, which, it was alleged on behalf of the prisoner, were inconsistent with the evidence of these witnesses. The Crown was also prepared, Mr Meredith said, to allow all relevant documents to be in court, subject to anything, he might have to say as to their admissibility in any instance. Powers of the Court On the application for the appointment of a commission to take evidence in England, Mr Sexton submitted that the court had jurisdiction to make the necessary order under section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1945, which gavg the court, the same powers to obtain evidence as it had in civil cases. Mr Sexton submitted that the witnesses he desired to call in England were compellable witnesses to give evidence on commission. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers): Even supposing we have the power, the court will not indulge* in what might be a futile proceeding. Applications like the present were unlikely to arise in England, Mr Sexton continued, because expert evidence was always available there, and consequently parallel cases could not be found in English legal decisions. Mr Justice Finlay suggested that, expert evidence was available here. Mr Justice Kennedy: If your application were granted, then the Crown could get evidence from abroad for production in criminal cases, although such evidence had not been given in open court in the presence of the accused in the usual way. Mr Sexton then stated that if the court found it fiad not the power ,to order a commission, he would have to ask for the witnesses to be brought out from England. > Spirits from the Deep The Chief Justice: You might call spirits from the vasty deep, but will they come? These witnesses are not compellable. Mr Sexton went on to submit that at the time of these trials there was no expert toxicologist in New Zealand. He quoted the words of Dr Gilmour at the second trial, that up to that time he had neither seen nor treated a case of veronal poisoning and was depending upon the literature ana upon his general experience.

The hearing was unfinished when the court rose for the day.