NOT GUILTY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 113, 16 May 1939, Page 5

NOT GUILTY

JURY’S VERDICT AT WANGANUI

ALLEGED OFFENCE AGAINST YOUNG GIRL. ! A verdict of not guilty was returned by a jury in the Supreme Court at Wanganui yesterday in a case in which Jack George, aged 58, of Auckland, was charged on three counts of indecent assault on a girl of 13 years and four months. 'lhe jury was out for more than two hours and filed into Court to say that the members could not agree. His Honour, Sir Hubert Ostler, sent the jury back to further consider the matter, as the time required by law had not elapsed sufficiently for him to accept a disagreement. The jury went to dinner and afterwards delivered a verdict of not guilty. Mr. N. R. Bain, Crown Prosecutor at Wanganui, conducted the case for the Crown and Mr. F. W. Schramm, of Auckland, represented the accused. Members of the jury were Messrs. Arthur P. Ralph (foreman), Roy V. Young, Eric W. Tippins, Francis Rush, Joseph Smithies, Alfred Tarrant, John Patterson. David McNeal, Arthur V. Burston. Francis Laird, Charles Kendall. Felix A. McLean. Mr. Bain, outlining the facts of the case, said that the girl was a ward of the State and was a backward child. Accused had come from Auckland to Wanganui for his Christmas holidays and had stayed at the home of the people who had been given charge of the girl. Alice Tutell, Child Welfare Officer at Wanganui, produced a certified copy of the birth certificate of the girl, showing her to be born on August 27, 1925. She had been committed to the care of the State in October, 1925. Accused, giving evidence, denied the offences and letters were produced in Court from the child’s foster

mother, who had invited the accused to come to Wanganui for his holidays. The foster mother had oooked accommodation at a local hotel and had arranged for accused to have his meals and stay the rest of his time at her home. Mr. Schramm questioned the foster mother about her letters to the accused and whether her husband had seen them. She replied that he had seen them. Questioned as to whether , she had seen accused when she had visited Auckland, the foster mother said she had. She had .known two years.