APPEAL CASE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 166, 16 July 1942, Page 3

APPEAL CASE

Messrs. Hall Skelton and Skelton write:—We have been instructed to write to you relative to a report of an appeal case appearing in the issue of your paper. The case was an appeal by way of rehearing in the Supreme Court at Auckland against the dismissal of a complaint by Mr. H. F. Levien, S.M., alleging that one Stanley Ritchie was the father of our client's chilc.

It would appear that by reason of the report of the proceedings being condensed for publication that such report inadvertently implied that tne appellant had committed deliberate perjury, or at least that was the view of the presiding judge.

Our client states that your report inadvertently misrepresented the findings of the presiding judge. We would point out that his Honor Mr. Justice Callan, in his judgment, specifically stated on the one hand that he did not find as a fact that Miss Fox and her witnesses had perjured themselves in the witness box, and on the other hand did not find that Stanley Ritchie had perjured himself in his denial of paternity. Miss Fox emphatically denies that she committed perjury in evidence. The basis of his Honor's findings was that the appellant was unable to produce sufficient evidence to satisfy the Court that Stanley Ritchie was the father of her child, and not that the evidence given by the appellant and her witnesses was false. In view of the fact that our client considers her reputation to be at stake, and the fact that further proceedings are contemplated, we ask you to publish this letter in fairness to our client.