INDECENT ASSAULT CASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3882, 7 August 1928, Page 17

INDECENT ASSAULT CASE.

AUCKLAND, August 3. Outspoken comment was made by Mr Justice Reed in the Supreme Court in a case in which Alexander Henry Martin, aged 26, a former law clerk, was charged with indecently assaulting a male. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, the foreman stating that the jury was dissatisfied with the lapse of time between the date -of the informtaion being laid and the date of the statement taken from the boy concerned. “Prisoner, the jury has found you not guilty,” said his Honor. “They, perhaps, do not know you were tried last February for almost the same offence on a boy in very much the same circumstances as the present. Of course, you were found not guilty then, and you have been found not guilty to-day; but a pitcher may go to the well too often. I strongly advise you not to carry boys about in your motor car in future, because a third jury may not be quite so friendly.’” Asking the boy who had been the principal witness to stand up, his Honor said: “ I think you behaved exceedingly well in connection with this matter. You did a duty to the public in reporting a case such as this. lam sure the fact that the jury has found the prisoner not guilty does not express any view of theirs that your story is untrue. They simply think that through the lapse of time some mistakes have been made, but should anyone suggest that your story is untrue you have the assurance that the judge who presided believed your story.”