SUPREME COURT

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11663, 23 January 1902, Page 3

SUPREME COURT

THE ARIADNE CASE. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, January 22. • When the case was resumed this morning Mr Stringer.intimated that the Crown had proved, beyond reasonable doubt, by their scientific adviser, Dr Chilton, that the incriminating agreement between Kerry and Mumford Had been faked. The main part of the agreement had been traced over, and the incriminiating words added. Under the circumstances he asked that the agreement, as against Kerry and Freke, be withdrawn from the jury, and as the agreement was the only evidence, against Freke, the Crown did not purpose to pro--1 ceed further against that prisoner. • The jury, by direction of the Judge,'returned a verdict of not guilty, against i Fieke, and his Honour discharged Freke from custody, and expressed regret at the inconvenience he had been subjected to. The hearing of evidence was resumed. Andrew Olsen, A.8.. a member of the crew of the Ariadne during the voyage from Thursday Island to Sydney, said that Mumford had informed him he was going to wreck the Ariadne, and offered him £2O out of his share if he would go as mate, but witness refused. Aiter the wreck Kerry told him it was all nonsense about the vacht being wrecked wilfully, and that he had lost £IO,OOO over it. Kerry introduced witness to a dark man in a Sydney hotel, who offered him a job in a store at £4 10s a week.

By Mr Skerrett: Keriy also asked him to go as mate, but they could not agree as to -wages. He got a letter from Mumford, when the latter was in Dunedin, in which he said he had a good thing or.'. There was money in it, and perhaps some for Olsen, too, but it was too private to write about.

Mrs Downing, formerly barmaid at the Port Jackson Hotel, Sydney, N gave evidence regarding interviews between Kerry and Mnmford in the hotel before the Ariadne left Sydney. She overheard Kerry make an arrangement with Mumford to lose the Ariadne for £4OO. Witness also narrated conversations with Mumford at Christchurch whilst awaiting trial, and also gave details of the interview with Mumford in the Criterion Hotel, when Mumford endeavoured to win her over to Kerry's' side. Mr Harper and Mr Barilon cross-ex-amined Mrs Downing, but failed to elicit anything fresh or shake her evidence. Detective Marsack said that he arrested Mumford in Lyttelton on October Bth. He searched his lodgings and found typewritten copies of two statements, receipts for registered letter?; Riid a number of ©thei' l documents; alss a book with the following entrv:—"Wrecked British ship Ariadne, ] 8.20* p.m., March 26th, 1901, on Waitaki | beach, south Waitaki river, one and a half mile, New Zealand." Witness also found a copy of a letter from Mumford to Kerry containing the following sentences: " Now you ought to make me a very substantial' present for all I have had' to go through on vour bshalf." The letter referred" also to Captain Willis, whom " I never had any use for." and went on. " I should have thought from what you said we shotfld all have been in London before this. and starting our other experiment. It won't do to go ir; the same ship, or someone will spot us and good-bve to all my prospects and the £IO,OOO. " No good writing about it till we have got to London, or until you settle with me over this last one." Marsack then repeated the evidence he had given in the lower Court as to his conversation with Mumford, in which the latter made a confession of having deliberately wrecked the yacht, and gave full details of how it was done. Detective Goulter. a senior detective of the New South Wales police force, gave similar evidence as was given in the Court

betow as to the arrest of Kerry and Freke in Sydney. He repeated also his conversation with Mumford in Christchurch, and was cross-examined on several points of the conversation. Claude Ferrier, who was sent to inspect the wreck of the Ariadne by Captain Willis, repeated the evidence he had given in the lower Court, as did Malcolm James Millar, a shipwright of Dunedin, as to the value of the yacht. -Herbert James Hart, who gave evidence in the lower Court, was about to narrate the circumstances under which he met Kerry in England, and left England in the Ariadne, but the evidence was objected to, and at this stage the Court adjourned till next morning.