JURY DISAGREES

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 38, 16 February 1929, Page 5

JURY DISAGREES

alleged booxmaking.

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY IN ONE CASE.

CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night

The trial took plSc© in the Siipreme Court to-day of Patrick Walsh and Robert Michael Cox, charged with bookmaking, Cox being further charged with (inter fe rencd with file working of the telephone in Walsh’s house when the police made a raid!.

A detective described the finding of betting cards, etc., ip the house. No evidence was called for the defence.

His Honour, in summing up, sale! th© question for tlbejury. to deter, mine was, were Oox and Walsh act* uafly carrying on the bookmaking; ■business, or was the whiole petfohnanoe which followed the police raid merely a; bit of a raasqueradb; That was the'question the whole thing boiled down, to. If they were satisfied all that material-and all that paraphernalia found by the detectives pust to be 'there; if Cox and Walsh just happened to bq there in the circum, stances found by the police; if the telephones just happened to be in, the house, and if Walsh just happened to bq excited when accosted,; then the accused} must hq acquitted. The judge urged the jury to take that' xuidontradicted evidence as a , whole , andi asK themselves w?rat were the'accused doing there? 111 they wer© satistieri that it was not a business but just some sort of a game winch, His Honour suggested was- mcr edthen the accused entitled to be acquitted. The two men had been found in the house with a great deal of betting material - . Tner© was the fact of the two telephones and interference! with the wires, and subsequent about bets on the to discover what this pointed to. races.. It was the duty of the jury Cox' was found not guilty and the j'ury was unable to agree in the case against' Walsh..