SYDNEY LIBEL ACTION

Otago Witness, Issue 3169, 9 December 1914, Page 61

SYDNEY LIBEL ACTION

ATTORNEY-GENERAL AWARDED £SOO. SYDNEY, December 1. In the libel action brought by Mr Hall (Attorney-general) against the Worker newspaper, the jury awarded Mr Hall £SOO damages. A stay of proceedings was granted. According to the statement of the case by the plaintiff’s counsel, L’Estrange, the man against whom Mr Hall declined to file a bill as organiser of the Australian Workers’ Union, allegedly gave certain advice to the workers in connection with the rural workers’ strike, for which the union called him to account. The outcome of this was that L’Estrange made a statutory declaration, and on the strength of this declaration he was committed for trial. When it came to a question of filing a bill against L’Estrange, Mr Hall, being acquainted with him, left the matter entirely in the hands of Judge Bevan, who advised that it would be useless to file a bill, and Mr Hall acted upon this advice. Prior to giving his advice, Judge Bevan obtained through the police declarations from a number of men supporting L’Estrange’s case. The Worker article, referring to Judge Sevan's action in obtaining this evidence after the trial had been held, asked : “ How is it that L’Estrange has been able to ascend the backstairs of the Department of Justice and place his version before the Attorneygeneral to induce him to withhold action?’’ The Judge, in summing up, said he thought Mr Hall had made a mistake in not determining L’Estrange’s case himself. Referring to Judge Bevan’s action in obtaining evidence outside the witness-box, the judge said that if this practice existed it was the most reprehensible he had ever heard of.