WOMAN GUILTY, JURY DECLARES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 15

WOMAN GUILTY, JURY DECLARES.

EVIDENCE HEARD WAS OF REVOLTING NATURE. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, February 10. The trial of Maud Herbert, who is charged with illegally using an instrument on a young woman who subsequently died, is proceeding. Details of a revolting nature were given by a detective, who raided accused’s house.

Mr Justice Herdman, observing a number of women in the public gallery, said: “If they have any self-respect they will leave the Court.” Several women complied, but others remained till they were cleared out by an orderly. When the young man who married deceased in hospital was giving evidence, Mr Schramm, counsel for the defence, asked him why he had not married her sooner.

Mr Justice Herdman reproved counsel for asking such questions, saying he should have some regard for the man’s feelings. Mr Schramm replied that the witness was an accomplice in the charge being dealt with, but his Honor closed the incident by remarking, “You do as I tell you.”

His Honor, in summing up, said the evidence had hardly been challenged. Except in one respect the evidence was clear and definite, and he imagined that it would lead the jury to one' conclusion only. If it did that, then the public duty which the jury was there to perform required it to find a verdict of gxiilty. Reviewing the evidence in regard to the question whether it showed that accused had performed an illegal operation, his Honor said that in addition to the evidence of the young woman (taken in hospital) there was the very frank and candid evidence given by the young man who ultimately became her husband. The technical point had been raised that the girl and the man were accomplices of accused, but there was a substantial body of evidence to corroborate that given by them. Referring to the evidence of the detectives who arrested accused, his Honor said he had tried many cases throughout New Zealand, but he doubted if in any other there had been such shocking and extraordinary evidence as had been given in the course of this trial, tie put it to the jury whether accused’s conduct upon her arrest had not been such as would suggest that she had committed an offence, the circumstances pf which were being investigated by the police. The jury, after a retirement of little more than an hour and a half, returned with a verdict of guilty. His Honor: I agree entirely with your verdict, gentlemen. I do not see that you could have come to any other conclusion in this case.

Prisoner was remanded for sentence until Wednesday.