SUPREME COURT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14711, 17 September 1918, Page 4

SUPREME COURT.

CHARGE AGAINST A MAORI.

HIS HONOR CONSIDERS CRITICISM

UNJUSTIFIED

1 ! i (Before his Honor Mr. Justice Hosking. The hearing of the case of allegei . carnal knowledge, preferred against i j native of 20 years of age, named Lov< Tuki-te Rangi Hurae, employed at th j Waipukurau railway station, was con ! tiiiued at the Supreme Court yesterday j afternoon, accused being under esamina i tion. | jls everything you have written m thii j document true? — I did not write thai I statement according to my own desire ' It was given to me. Is this statement true or false ? — Tin ; statement is true. Everything ?— Yes. Accused, further cross-examined, de i nied that he had said anything aboul the girl's age m the interview at the railway station, and contradicted th< detective further on this point. The girl was also speaking false. She was educated to come here and give fals« j evidence. His wife left him two weeks I after the birth of her child. j .His Honor: About two months aftei these events. To Mr. Nolan: The statements of < the girl and the detective were all untrue. : Counsel for accused, m addressing the Count, said that after hearing accused m the witness' box, he felt sure the jury i would see that the-cause of -his elopement was not unreasonable, that the impression gained from the local natives ; would cause elopement. When ithe Maori ; jury was asked for at Napier this fact | never occurred to them, that because of j tribal antagonism m the distant ages, , the generations ithat came later would . have the right of antagonism. The de- ' fence did not deny the intercourse, but submitted that accused had a reasonable ground for believing that the girl was of the age at which- that sort of thing was lawful. Counsel argued at length on the importance" to be attached to the statement made to a man of Detective Butler's experience by a Maori boY of 20 years of age. ! His Honors But he says it is all ! true. All m it, he says, is true. He says that here to-day. Mr. Rogers: Yes, the statement is perfectly true, but what does it mean? , Counsel contended that m saying he : knew the girl was under age, accused thought it meant under 21 years. J Mri, Nolan, m replying, asked whether there was anything m accused's statement from which it appeared he had reasonable cause to think the girl was over 16 years of age. . There was not, he ! submitted, anything of the sort. No police official, he submitted, could have acted more fairly than had 7 Detective Bijtler. Tlie jury had heard tjjie prisoner .give his evidence. He would not ,. say anything more, but leave it to the Jury to soy whether the prisoner was giving true evidence. The evidence of the Crown had not been impeached at all, and the Crown, he submitted, had presented n clear case. His Honor, m summing up, said accused had thought fit to seek to explain the reason for his flight, that he believed the native jury was hostilo to the tribe he belonged to. There was no evidence that the Maoris would not have done their duty impartially ; there was no' evidence before them of any reflection 'on the jury summoned locally to try the prisoner, "if he had appeared. Tile faqt that accused did not appear — that he; fled — was not a fact that the Crown had put forward as indicative of guilt. ■Flight was often put forward as a ground. of guilt, but it had not been m this case, so he asked the jury to cast this out of their minds. An appeal had also been made to givei the Maori the same justice as a European. Personally, he had tried several Maori cases — many of them m fact — and he had not thought it necessary to suggest to a jury that they should* deal with a Maori as they would with a European. He was confident that the Maori, equally with the European, gets even-handed justice with ■ a European jury. The fact that this was so may be inferred from this : The Maoris appear to have been perfectly satisfied with European juries because it was 30 years since . the -practice of summoning a Maori jury, the Maori meanwhile having been tried , by European juries. In this case the Maori that was before them seemed to have been Europeanised to a much greater extent than, many of the Maoris that came before the Court. His llonor went on to say that if the fact was proved that a man had intercourse with a girl who happened to be under 16 years then he was guilty of, an offence. It was entirely at the man's risk. If a man trifled with a girl who turned out to be under the age of 16 he was guilty, the only exception being where the girl or where the jnan had reasonable ground to assume she was over 16. There was nothing of that sort m accused's line of defence. It was not raised m the Magistrate's Court, and he had not said m his evidence* that he believed she was over 16 years. They had heard a lot about this confession, and m this connection they liad had an inaccurate submissioit of what the law was. The cases cited were ( not relative to the matter before them. They were very different to what was, now before 'the Court. Even if the jury ' dismissed the written statement they still had the earlier verbal statement of the prisoner, which of itself, was quite an admissible admission. If the detective had not taken the statement he w^uld not have been doing his duty. It was perfectly right that the detective should ask questions. It rested with himself (his Honor) to say whether these* statements should be ad 1 mitted, and he certainly found nothing m this case — the detective had acted with nothing else but propriety. If he had refused 'to take this statement he would have neglected his duty. "I dc not think the evidence justified the criticism m this matter," said his Honor. Apart from these admissions the jury had the admission m the box that day that the statements m it were true. Tlie only point was whether he (accused) had reasonable cause to think she was undei 16. It was a high.- flight of imagination to think that tho mother inserted the wrong date m the book. That was not the way to deal with evidence. Tlie law, concluded his Honor, offers no protection^ to a man who touches a girl under 16 years, cveif if she consents, and the Maori girl is equally as protected as the European girl. The jury, of which Mr. It. -Johnston was foreman, returned at 6.10 p.m., aftef 40 minutes' retirement, recording a verdict of guilty, with a recommendation to mercy on the ground of the youth of the prisoner and the fact that he was a Maori; His Honor deferred sentence until this morning. ,< DIVORCE. Ellen McCarthy, of Gisborne v. Thomas McCarthy, formerly of Gisborne, now with his Majesty's Forces, m Samoa, on the ground of alleged desertion. Mr. Burnard appeared for petitioner. Ellen McCarthy, petitioner, deposed that she was married on August 26, 1903, at Hawera. At the start her husband borrowed £100 from her mother.

He just squandored it away. Her husband was quite all right at the start, but seven or eight months after they . were married he started to idrink and bet. She worked from the second day after her marriage. He was a tailor, and witness was a tailoress. In Novem. ber, 1910, her husband left her. There were three 'children of the marriage. Two of them were with her and the'eldest was with her mother. Her husband went first to Opotiki and subsequently to Taumarunui. He sent her small sums up to August, 1912. He con. tributed £40 from November, 1910, to August, 1912. Since August, 1912, he had not paid a penny. She produced maintenance order made on December 17, 1912. No payments had been made under that order. Ho contested the order and disappeared again. She had supported herself by working at the tailoring trade. George G. ShierlaW, formerly a local master tailor, depos_ed to knowing re- . spondent 10 or 11 years ago. He was a solid drunkard. Petitioner came to him I for employment, and worked for tw.o. years. James Johnstone, tailor, said he knew respondent. He did not think he had seen him sober. Petitioner had been consistently employed by witness since the disappearance of her. husband. Benjamin George Dudfield, master tailor, stated thatSie lived next door to the patties eight years ago. Respondent used to drink- too much. He did not earn enough to support his 'wife and family. Decree nisi granted,Ho be made abso-. lute in> three months. Custody of children determined by Magistrate's order. Costs £15 and disbursements. (Continued on..Page'6.)