SUPREME COURT Man In Female Disguise Acquitted Of Vagrancy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 6

SUPREME COURT Man In Female Disguise Acquitted Of Vagrancy

A young man found dressed as a woman in Wilsons road, Opaiwa, at 1 a.m.„ on December 23 was acquitted in the Supreme Court yesterday of being a rogue and vagabond in that he loitered in the street with felonious intent.

The accused, Michael Paul Stone, aged 22, a clerk (Mr J. N. Matson), while admitting he had been in female disguise, said in his defence that he had merely been walking home after a party, with no intention of committing crime.

On the jury’s verdict of not guilty, Mr Justice Macarthur ordered that Stone be stood down, to await sentence on a count of burglary, of which he was found guilty earlier in the Supreme Court session. Evidence against Stone in yesterday’s case was given by Detective D. N. Scott, who said he encountered him—dressed completely as a woman, and wearing make-up —standing in the shadows near a house in Wilsons road where the police happened to be making inquiries. On being questioned, because of his known character, Stone had explained his disguise as being “a bit of fun,” said Detective Scott. Stone had admitted being “picked up” by a man that night and taken to a party at Sumner on the supposition that he (Stone), was a woman and supposed he would have accepted any similar invitation if another man had come along. In view of Stone’s reputation for crime while in female disguises, in that he lured men and stole their money on pretext of sexual activities, his explanation for being on the street was considered un-

satisfactory, and he was arrested, said Detective Scott. Cross-examined by Mr Matson, Detective Scott denied that his work had given him a jaundiced view of humanity, and that with Stone it was “give a dog a bad name and hang him.” But Mr Matson, addressing the jury, suggested that this could well be the case. Although Stone had a criminal record, Stone maintained that on this night he was simply on his way home to Falsgrave street nearby, without any criminal intent, and had had the bad luck to run into a detective who knew him. “He relies on the jury to give him a fair trial,” Mr Matson said.

Stone, in evidence, denied Detective Scott’s version of events, and said he had merely told the latter he had been to a party, and had been dropped off from a car at the corner of Wilsons and Opawa roads to make his way home. The party, said Stone, had actually been at the home of a man Ellis in Milton street, Sydenham. This was corroborated by Frederick Ellis, a boardinghouse proprietor and parttime university student, who said that Stone had been given a lift home by a Mr and Mrs Hill and another gentleman. Ellis, however, denied Stone’s evidence that there had been two other men dressed as women at the party. In cross-examination, Stone had to he pressed by the Crown Prosecutor (Mr C. M. Roper) to admit to his previous convictions (as cited), both in Auckland and Christchurch, for theft, burglary, and car conversion—some of

the offences committed in female disguise. Mr Roper, summarising the Crown’s case, said the evidence clearly showed that Stone was a thief, burglar, and car converter, who committed such crimes while disguised as a woman. Stone, so disguised, had been seen in Wilsons road in the early hours of the morning, waiting in the shadows while a man —unknown to him, a detective—approached. Was that the conduct of a normal person making his legitimate way home?

The jury was three hours in reaching its verdict of not guilty.