IRISH SWEEP CASE

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1931, Page 7

IRISH SWEEP CASE

METHODS OF WITNESSES REMARKS BY THE JUDGE. (N.Z. Herald Correspondent.) * London, Nov. 10. A series of findings in the' action respecting the first prize of £354,724 in the Irish sweepstake on the Grand National were given at Du'blin by Mr. Justice Meredith. ... . Mr. Emilio Scali drew the winning ticket, and two Italian hairdressers, Antonio Apicella and Matteo Constantino, claim to be co-owners with Scala. A three-quarter share was sold and £60,000 is involved in the action. These two men claimed to be co-own-ers with Scala in the Grakle ticket. ■Scala denied that this ticket was included in any sharing agreement, and alleged that a document evidencing such a claim was in material parts a forgery. After a lengthy trial, Mr. Justice Meredith resaved judgment on October 28. three-fourths of the winning ticket was purchased by Mr. Arthur Bendir, of a London firm of commission agents. Mr. Justice Meredith’s findings were: *1 hold that the number of the winning ticket was inserted in the document af■ter the result of the draw was known. I hate come to the conclusion that there was a verbal agreement by conversation about'including an extra ticket in the pool.” The . case was. adjourned for a fortnight, when Mr. Justice Meredith will hear further legal arguments, before giving his decision as to the destination of the sum which is at stake. Mr. Justice Meredith, in delivering, judgment on the facts, said that the conflict of evidence was almost unprecedented. It was quit© impossible to accept in its entirely the .version of the facts relied on by either side. He had heard a very large number of witnesses whose code‘of morality and whose, veracity equation -made them quite different from any assemblage of witnesses with which anything he had hitherto tried had made him familiar.

STORMING HEAVEN WITH PRAYER “I have received an unconquerable impression,” continued Mr. Justice Meredith, “that both sides have a general belief that the real merits and the real justice of the case are with them. Mrs. Apicella, in the witness-box, held an in teresting and attractive set of-, beads in her hand quite unostentatiously, and- as she was sworn she took care to place the cross on the fiook. All was done in a way not to make me see it, but I did see it lam convinced that Mrs. Apicella had been attending Mass regularly and had stormed the heavens with prayers that this case might be won, and that she trusts her prayers will be answered. ’ Referring again to the entry of tpe. number of the winning tipket on the side of the document, Mr. Justice Meredith said:—-“I, have come, to the conclusion that although these words were added in after the draw there was a verbal agreement by conversation about an extra ticket. Scala had procured a book of tickets on behalf of- the joint adventure and had agreed that any tickets not sold out of that book were to •be taken up by the partnership. I find that ■Scala consented that a remaining ticket in the book should oe comprised in the agreement. You can understand that Mrs. Apicella’s outlook when writing in those words would not be the same as that of an ordinary forger—certainly not if she believed that those words ought to be in the document. MR- SCALA’S POLICY.

“Persons who give false testimony, said the judge, In another part of Im judgment, “are almost invariably consistent in their method of lying. There are the artistic liars who endeavour to gain credit of being in the main perfectly truthful and occasionally eyen making apparently damaging admissions and reserving the lies for nuine essentials. Then there are the timid liars who are reluctant to tell a lie if it can be helped and who prefer to evade or forget. “Mr. Scala is one of the type that adopts the policy of taking the bull by the horns. He never minces matters. There are some litigants" who cannot leave a good case alone. They must improve and copper-fasten tfheir case. I have no doubt Scala is such a litigant. “I do not thing too much weight should be attached to Scala’s action in extorting an additional £2500 from Bendir for his consent to the withdrawal of three-fourths of the prize money. To explain why Scala was so secret about some books which he held, I should say there was no doubt the others would have regarded the secret purchases as not playing the game, and that Scala probably understood that.” In joint gambling adventures, Mr. Justice Meredith said, were often io be found irrational notions about luck and what broke one's luck, and so forth. THREE “GREAT FELLOWS” “They were great fellows, the three of them together,” the'judge said, “and the joint adventure cemented the bond Of friendship. An individual purchase would be a violation of the spirit of the adventure. “In this connection it must be remembered that Apicella and Constantino had previously joined in another sweepstake in which they had won a prize of £5OO. On that occasion there had been no written agreement, and T have no doubt they were accurate in saying they were not anxious that there should be a written agreement.’’ Counsel asked if the judge made a

finding that the winning ticket was allocated by Mr. Scala to the pool. Mr. Justice Meredith: Oh, no, that is one of the very points I want to have argued. A cablegram published on December stated, that Mr. Justice Meredith had given judgment for -Scala.