SAMUEL LAKEYS ESTATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19836, 27 June 1934, Page 5

SAMUEL LAKEYS ESTATE

ORDER FOR DISPOSAL MADE CASE PRESENTS UNIQUE FEATURES By Telegraph—Press Association' AUCKLAND. June 26. A sequel to the Ruawaro murder trial occurred in the Supreme Court today, when on the motion of Mr Munro, letters of administration ad bona colligenda were granted by Mr Justice Herdman in the estate of Samuel Pender Lakey to Mr Oliphant, solicitor, of Auckland. The procedure which is devised for the purpose cf collecting the goods of i dead person and disposing of them to the best advantage of his , estate, means that Mr Oliphant, who is acting for the relatives of Lakey and Christabel Lakey in England, can immediately take any necessary steps for the disposal of Lakey’s farm and stock at Ruawaro. Constables have been stationed at the property ever since the principal group of investigators left the district early last December, and a nearby settler, Mr L. Stent, who was a witness at the trial of William Bayly, now under sentence of death for murdering the Lakeys, his neighbours, has been engaged to milk the cows. Unusual Procedure. The action brought to-day represents a most unusual procedure, and from all aspects of the case it is believed to be unique in New Zealand. The procedure empowers a person to deal with an estate in case of urgency. The position was especially complicated inasmuch as the death of Lakey had to be proved, while, there was the further question as to whether Mrs Lakey predeceased her husband. Mrs Lakey was about four years older than her husband, and because of that it was presumed, as a result of a statutory amendment in the Property Law Amendment Act 1928, she had died first. Where two persons die in circumstances as a result of which there is no evidence as to which one died first, it is presumed that the older person predeceased the younger. An affidavit was obtained from the deputy registrar of the Supreme Court that there was no evidence on the point as to which of the Lakeys died first, and the affidavit also referred to the fact of the murder against the person accused, William Bayly. Evidence was by this means provided of the death of Samuel Lakey. The law invoked in the legal argument presented was very old and the procedure, which is part of English Common Law, is supposed to have been in existence for several centuries. The court has power under the English act of 1857 to grant letters of administration to any person, passing over the next-of-kin, if there are special circumstances. A perusal f one of the affidavits in the present case shows that the next-of-kin are in England, and that they have appointed Mr Oliphant as their attorney. The procedure employed in the case was in the nature of a preliminary application very rarely employed for the purpose of dealing with an estate j. nding the final grant of letters of administration. The grant made by the Judge empowers the administrator ad bona colligenda to sell the estate and effects of Lakey and to hold the proceeds subject to directions of the court and subject to the making of the final grant. What the immediate outcome will te has yet to be decided. Unique in Legal History. Officials in Auckland say that the method of proving the death of Lakev is unique in legal history in the Dominion. The body of Lakey was not produced by the Crown in the case against Bayly, the evidence of his death resting upon circumstantial evidence in the form of a number of remains found upon Bayly’s property. In the meantime Mr Oliphant lias advertised for any person knowing of the existence or whereabouts of a will of either Lakey or his wife The Lakeys did not have any children.