CORONER MISLED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18253, 23 November 1933, Page 7

CORONER MISLED

LITTLE GIRL’S INVENTION STORY OF MAN’S DEATH VERDICT NEEDS REVISION (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. "It is quite obvious that this girl's statement, on which I relied at first, is not true, and if the child were not so young she would have to be punished,” said Mr. R, W. McKean, SAL the coroner, after hearing a statement made by a girl aged 11 years when he reopened an inquest concerning the death of a retired farmer. Allan John Ross, aged 64 years. Ros.s, a single man living in Mount Eden, was found lying on a lawn near the railway line below an overhead bridge in Dominion road on September 26, and lie died shortly afterwards.

When the inquest was first opened, the girl said she was standing near her home and she saw a man sitting on the edge of the bridge facing tho road. He was rolling a cigarette when his hat was blown backward. The man turned round in an attempt to catch his hat and overbalanced, falling off the rail on to the section below. GIRL’S SECOND STATEMENT

When the inquest was reopened, Senior-Detective Hall produced a further statement made by tho girl in which ishe said she did not see the man fall. She was taking a message from her mother when she saw some men looking over the rail of the bridge. She looked through and saw the deceased lying below. She heard onlookers expressing various opinions as to how he had come to fall, and what she had told the police in her first statement was not what she had seen, but consisted of opinions she had heard other people express. When she went home she told her mother she had seen the man fall fro;n the bridge, and told a policeman who interviewed her the same story, as she was afraid .to tell him anything different in front of her parents. "I am very very sorry for not telling the policeman the truth,” she concluded.

"It is quite obvious from the other evidence that the girl’s statement is untrue,” the coroner said. "She did not see the deceased rolling a cigarette, and there was no trace of tobacco in his pockets. Moreover, he had not been known to smoke for about a year prior to his death.” CONSEQUENCES NOT SERIOUS

It was only because the girl was so young that ho refrained from taking further steps. As it was, she apparently did not realise the enormity of her offence. Whether she really knew anything about the whole affair he did not know. She probably heard somebody say the man had fallen over, and then told that as her story. The consequences of the girl’s statements, fortunately, had not been serious in this case, but they might well have been. ’ ’

“I was misled at tho first, inquest by the statement made by this little girl,” he added. "It did not occur to me that a child of such tender years could invent such-a story. I am satisfied that the deceased fell froiq the bridge several hours earlier than the child stated, somewhere about midnight.” The coroner revised his original verdict of accidental death to read that death was due to injuries received as a result of falling from the bridge, there being no evidence to show how the deceased had fallen.