NO NEW TRIAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 85, 9 April 1936, Page 8

NO NEW TRIAL

MAREO’S APPLICATION APPEAL COURT DECISION [ Per Press Association I WELLINGTON. April 8. The Court of Appeal today dismissed Mareo’s application for a new trial. The Court of Appeal delivered its reserved judgment in Mareo’s application for a new trial, heard on March 23, 24, 25 and 26. The Court was unanimous that the application should be dismissed and a new trial refused. The Chief Justice, -Sir M. Myers, after lengthy consideration of the evidence and counsel’s submissions, said: “It will be sufficient, I think, to say that here there was a prima facie case apart from any material which might otherwise have been debatable. That being so the jury had to consider the evidence as a whole and it all comes back to the question of whether the verdict was one that twelve reasonable men, giving due weight io the presumption of law in favour of prisoner’s innocence, could not properly find. I am forced to the conclusion that this has not been shown, but that on the contrary evidence such as that a jury could reasonably and properly find prisoner guilty. Tn my opinion the application fails and should be dismissed. ’ ’ Justices Reed. Ostler, Blair, and Kennedy, in a joint judgment delivered by Justice Ostler, agreed that the Crown had made out a prima facie case and considered the jury had ample evidence from which to infer that certain of prisoner’s acts and statements pointed to his being guilty of the very crime with which he was charged.