CASE FOR GROWN CONCLUDED

Southland Times, Issue 23026, 21 October 1936, Page 5

CASE FOR GROWN CONCLUDED

CHARGES AGAINST WOMAN (United Press Association.) Wellington, October 20. Further evidence for the Crown was given when the retrial of Isabel Annie Aves, also known as Craike, a married woman of Hastings, on seven charges of using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage was continued to-day. The defence opens to-mor-row. A Wellington girl said that in June last she went to Hastings where Mrs Craike performed a successful operation on her. She was at Mrs Craike's home when detectives called on June 25. Mrs Craike told her that they had found a body in the garden and asked her to say she had buried it, which she had not. Witness said she was to pay £35 for the operation. She had paid about £7. The result of a search of Mrs Craike’s premises on June 25 was described by Detective B. Farquharson, of Hastings. Buried in the ground adjoining the house the police, he said, found the body of an infant. Mrs Craike said she knew nothing about it and could not account for it. She was arrested later that day. The following morning a party of police removed the body referred to and foetus from a second hole in a duck pen. In other parts of the section the police unearthed twenty lots of human foetal remains.

Detective K. W. Mills, of Napier, produced a book which he said was found in Mrs Craike’s house. It showed various amounts, which totalled £2250 6/- for the year 1935. The names of a number of people were also shown. Constable T. Chalmers, of Napier, said that when her house was being searched Mrs Craike remarked: “It looks as if they have got me this time.” Dr. P. P. Lynch, pathologist of Wellington, said he was present when the police unearthed the body of an infant. It was buried to a depth of nine or 10 inches and surrounded with lime. The appearance of the lungs could only be accounted for by the infant, which was a female, having breathed during delivery or after birth. The child was four or five weeks premature. He was unable to form any opinion as to the cause of death. Evidence in respect of the foetal remains was also given by Dr. Lynch. Most of them, he said, were the results of miscarriage or abortion in the later months of pregnancy.

This concluded the case for the Crown.