MURDER TRIAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 8

MURDER TRIAL

COST TO THE STATE SPECIAL VOTE LIKELY WELLINGTON, Juno 30. No documents relating to the conviction of William Alfred Bayly for the murder of Samuel Pender Lakey and Christabel Lakey have been received by the Alinistcr of Justice (the Hon. J. G. Cobbc), but the report of the trial Judge (the Hon. Sir Alexander Herdman), together with copies of the evidence, will probably arrive in the course of the next few days. When the Judge’s report is received, it. together with copies of the evidence, will be circulated among members of the Executive Council. After each member has perused the documents, a special meeting of the council will be held to consider whether the sentence should be confirmed or commuted. If it. is confirmed, Bayly must be executed within seven days. Already the Minister has received one application for the office of hangman, while several letters have been received urging that Bayly be reprieved. No estimate of the cost of the trial has yet been compiled, but it is expected that the total expenditure will be so great that it will be necessary to ask Parliament to make a special vote for the Justice and Police Departments when the supplementary estimates are being considered. NO OFFICIAL FIGURES ESTIMATES EXCEED £5OOO. '1 lie cost of the Bayly trial from the commencement of the investigations until the curtain shall have been rung down will be very great. Probably it will be a record for criminal trials in New Zealand, if not Australia as well, says the Otago Daily Times. The costs incidental to the empanelling of the jury must have approached £450. Each juror was entitled to 9s per day, paid weekly. The sum paid for that totalled £lB3 12s. In addition, the jurymen were housed at an hotel at a cost of about £250. Necessarily the members of the jury were entertained. Then there was the cost of the investigations, the cost of expert witnesses before court proceedings and during court proceedings, witnesses’ fees, legal fees etc. Many men of great earning capacity were kept engaged on the case for weeks in such a manner as to preclude their taking part in ocher engagements. Sixty-four witnesses were called in the lower court, and 68. with nine recalls, gave evidence in the Supremo Court trial. There are no official figures, but men with experience of costs of that kind estimate that the total cost of investigations and rial of Bayly will easily exceed £5OOO. Some place the cost al considerably more than that. In any event the Bayly trial is the most expensive in the history of criminal courts in New Zealand. At the present time counsel for the defence are considering the question of an appeal against the sentence of i.l ea th. __