WOMAN'S WILL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 218, 13 September 1940, Page 5

WOMAN'S WILL

APPEAL SUCCEEDS. MURDER TRIAL , SEQUEL (By Air.) SYDNEY, Sept. 7. Edwin Helton, £(i, a storekeeper, of Augathella, Queensland, twice tried for the murder of Mrs. r.Targaret Roche, succeeded in an appeal to the High Court to set aside a judgment of the Supreme Court of Queensland debarring him from benefits in her will. A new trial was ordered. Mrs. Roche (50) was a widow, and kept a public house at Augathella. She died on September 10, 1937. Helton was an executor and a beneficiary of her will, which disposed of an estate valued at between £0000 and £10,000. At the first murder trial, he was convicted of poisoning Mrs. Roche, but was acquitted at the second trial. The Supreme Court of Queensland had dismissed his appeal against a jury's verdict that he had "unlawfully brought about the death of Mrs. Roche," and on this finding disentitled him to_ benefit from the will. Respondent to the High Court appeal was Mrs. Isabella Allen, mother of Mrs. Roche, who sued as one entitled to share in the estate in the event of an intestacy. In a joint judgment, Mr. Justice Dixon, Mr. Justice Evatt and Mr. Justice McTiernan said that under the dead woman's will the greater part of her property was bequeathed to Helton. "Helton's ground of appeal," they stated, "was thrft his acquittal of the murder charge made it impossible to" apply the rule of public policy excluding a homicide from taking property under the will or on the intestacy of hi 6 victim; that at all events his, acquittal should have been admitted in evidence as a probative fact, that ♦he -evidence was insufficient to warrant a finding that he unlawfully killed Mrs. Roche, and that the jury was misdirected as to the standard of proof which it should demand of those supporting the allegation, or, at least, was misled as to the manner in which it sheuld arrive at a finding." |

After declaring that there had been an illicit relationship between Helton and Mrs. Roche, and after sating that the cause of Mrs. Roche's death was poisoning, Justices Dixon, Evatt and McTiernan proceeded: "Suspicion fell on Helton. If there was anyone who had a motive for seeking Mrs. Helton's death it was he, a man much her junior, whose alliance with her was more readily explained by the money he had gained, the property he hoped to inherit, and her passion for him, than any compelling attraction on her part. His conduct after her seizure and death confirmed the natural suspicions which arose from the circumstances. A study of the whole evidence seems to put suicide out of the question, and to disclose no grounds whatever for suspecting any other person, nor for attributing the taking of poison to accident. It folio Wo that the verdict cannot be set aside on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence to support it." Complaint of Mis-triaL - After Justices Dixon, Evatt and McTiernan had stated their opinion that Helton was not entitled, as a matter of law, to a verdict and judgment in his favour, they referred to his complaint 1 of a mis-trial, and agreed that the trial judge had said something on which the jury was very likely to be misled by the direction it received. The acting-Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Rich, in a separate judgment, said that, unfortunate as the result might be, he ' concurred that the action must go down for a new trial. He suggested that the venue of the new trial should be changed 1 from Charleville, where the trial of the will suit was previously held.