ALLEGED LIBEL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17844, 29 July 1932, Page 8

ALLEGED LIBEL

SEQUEL TO RIOTING JURY UNABLE TO AGREE (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, last night. As a sequel to tlio unemployed demonstration .inside the grounds of Parliament- House on September 16, George .Buck! and Ernest, Frederick Thompson were tried til the Supreme Court to-dav on a charge of 'publishing a defamatory libel, of Police Inspector Lander. The alleged libel was contained in a pamphlet entitled “War,” and distributed at a meeting held in Auckland in October. . Its referred to Inspector Lander as a liar and perjurer when he said lie was not turned while on duty during the disturbance. (After further evidence had been heard, counsel for the accused said an astonishing thing was that the magistrate had ever permitted the prosecution for criminal libel. Inspector Lander had his remedy through a civil action for libel.

The Crown Prosecutor said the law of criminal libel had been brought in only in 1901, because it bad been found necessary to restrain irresponsible and dangerous persons from libelling men in public positions. ACCUSED REFUSED BAIL ills Honor described the case as a comparatively simple one. The statements against Inspector Lander were that lie was a liar; that lie had perjured himself; and that he had attacked defenceless men and women. It was open to the defence to seek to prove that the statements were true, but they had not done so. If th ese words had been published, it would be absurd and impossible to suggest, that they (were not defamatory. The mam defence was that these two men were not responsible for the publication and the distribution of the paper, but there was the direct evidence of two police officers implicating Thompson, and the name of Budd was at the bottom ot the paper. The real question was: Does this defamatory libel refer to Inspector Lander? After 31 hours’ retirement, the jury returned to ask if a verdict of publishing was found against Budd and ot distributing against Thompson, would both bo equally guilty? , .His Honor replied that if Budd published the libel he was guilty, and that if Thompson distributed, a libellous document lie also was guilty. . The impossibility of reaching an agreement was reported by the toreman. after a retirement of 4J hours. His Honor discharged the jury and said that the accused would be retried on Monday. “'No. I won’t allow ihem bail, he told counsel. ‘ ‘They can stay where they arc.” ______