HUMAN TESTIMONY

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13975, 9 August 1909, Page 6

HUMAN TESTIMONY

ITS LIMITATIONS. . In the judgment delivered on Friday in the collision case Selbio v. Manchester and Shaw Mr Justice Denniston made some interesting observations as to the weakness of human testimony bearing upon such incidents. "A collision," his Honour said, "is, as a rule, unexpected and unlooked for. It, and the incidents which immediately lead up to it, occupy usually a very small space of time —-how small is not always, nor easily, appreciated. Very often the time is measured) in seconds. In that time onlookers have to receive the impression of all they see or hear, or think they see or hear. When called upon to speak to these they have to recall these impressions, and out of them to reconstruct the scene as they believe they saw it. With our knowldge of the physiology of the physical and mental processes of sensation and memory and of the fallibility of human testimony in the most favourable conditions, it is not surprising that there is no class of ease in respect of which it is more difficult to obtain anything like accurate proof. I have known men whose powers of observation were high, and whoso veracity was unquestioned, give absolutely, irreconcileable accounts of a street accident in details where one would have supposed that mistake was impossible. Of this the present case is a good illustration. One man makes a formal' statement to a solicitor that he helped a woman before a man —next day he returns to say that on reflection he finds that he had reversed the order. Witnesses say they saw the man and woman hurled from tho trap. Others are equally positive that each stopped out of it. , There is testimony that the woman never fell at all; that she fell and never moved from the spot where she fell; that she got up and never moved from the spot; and that she got up and made a number of steps from the spot. Tho most difficult questions to determine are those of time and space. As to these, and generally where there is a conflict of testimony, I prefer, other things being equal, to reply on the evidence of those who had made their observations before tho confusion of the actual collision."