FRESH POLICE PROCEEDINGS IN BARBARICH CASE: ACCUSED NOW TO FACE SUPREME COURT TRIAL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 15, 3 November 1948, Page 5

FRESH POLICE PROCEEDINGS IN BARBARICH CASE: ACCUSED NOW TO FACE SUPREME COURT TRIAL

After hearing fresh police proceedings against Anthony Barbarich, accused of breaking into Hamill's garage 'at■•"•'■■' Whakatane on the night of August 10 and converting Mr P. G. Hammond's car, Mr E. L. Walton, S.M., yesterdey reversed the previous decision of Messrs L. H. Brown and S. S. Shapley, J's. P and committed the accused to the Supreme Court at Auckland for trial. There was further evidence on this occasion. * , '

Detective Sergeant R. H. Waterson presented the Police case and Mr B. S. Barry appeared for Barbarwho pleaded not guilty and reserved his defence. Evidence followed similar lines to that heard previously, with the difference that the Police on this occasion brought the owner of the car into the witness box to add: his testimony that, when recovered .at Tauranga, it had a bloodstain on the driver's side of the front) seat that was not there when he left it at Hamill's. Also, this time the evidence of Sergeant J. Colclough, fingerprint expert in charge of the Criminal Registration Branch, Wellington, was taken in greater and clearer detail.

Briefly, evidence produced by the Police sought to establish that Barbarich was at Whakatane the evening the crimes were committed, that he was at Tauranga the night the car arrived there, and that palm prints on a broken panel of glass from the front door of the garage were his.

• In a statement to the Police Barbarich had admitted being here on August 10 and going to Tauranga that night, but he said he had left Whakatane on foot and been given a ride to Tauranga in a freight truck. Though Constable. J. Maloney of Tauranga stated previously that there were no freight services running between the two towns that night he admitted under cross-ex-amination by Mr Barry that a private carrier's truck could have heen on the road. • i

Sergeant Colclough said that iri all his experience he had never found palm prints of any two people identical, and authorities on fingerprinting were definite that no two sets of finger prints could be the same. Twelve to 15 points of similarity were accepted as positive identification of fingerpririts, and 16 to 20 points for palm prints. There were altogether 63 points of similarity between a print of the palm of Barbarich's left hand, and the palm print on the broken pieces of glass. Mr Barry submitted that the Court should not lightly disturb the decision of another Court, and pointed out that there was virtually no new evidence. Though Sergeant Colcolugh had said he had never found two palm prints the same, he had not quoted other authorities as saying that and there was no suggestion that any of Barbarich's fingerprints had been found elsewhere around the garage or on the car.

Further, even if it. were established that the palm print was Barbarich's—and he was not prepared to admit that had been established — it proved nothing more 1 than that, at some time, Barbarich had laid his palm on that piece of glass, which he could have done in merely looking into the showroom. The Magistrate pointed out that a lower Court hearing was not a trial. It was merely a preliminary investigation to see if there were evidence which, if the jury believed it, would be sufficient to justify'a trial. He suggested that the palm print, Barbarich's cut thumb, the bloodstain found on the car and the facts that the accused had been in the locality when the crimes v,ere committed and at Tauranga the night the car got there might be thought sufficient by a jury. Bail was allowed, £SO on accused's own recognisance and one surety of £SO.