SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS PROVED FALSE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 285, 26 August 1920, Page 6

SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS PROVED FALSE

. 4 Statements made to Detective Carney uy two girls of 14 years of age, and ou which a, serious charge was based, were shown in the Magistrate's Court yesterday morn' ing to bo false. Before Mr. IV. G. Riddcll, S.M., Matthew Livingstone, au elderly man, was charged with carnally knowing a girl under the age of 15 years. The girl in the case was .before the Juvenile Court a- few wccrs ago on a charge of theft, and was committed to c home, and on that occasion she made a statement in the presence of the matron. In that statement.Bha mado serious allegations against the accused. When placed in the witness-box yesterday she repudiated the statement, and said that what she told the detective had been told her by another girl. The other girl was also called to glvo evidence, and she, too, repudiated a statement she had made to Detective. Carney. In that statement she had mado allegations of misconduct against Livingstone. Tho Magistrate Baid that the alllegatloni had evidently emanated from the illthy minds of the.girls,,and the evidence was insufficient to warrant the Court in ccm< mitting the accused for trial. FnrtVr, the statements Bhowed that the girls had a low moral tono, and apparently had very little appreciation of the difference between truth and falsehood. It was Impossible to ,beliove anything that the girli had said. The information was dismissed,