BAYLY MURDER TRIAL

Evening Star, Issue 21753, 22 June 1934, Page 3

BAYLY MURDER TRIAL

COUNSEL CONCLUDES SPEECH FOR DEFENCE

CLAIMS ACCUSED'S EXPLANATION UNCONTRADICTED JUHV TO REVISIT RUAWABO ("Per United Press Association'.] AUCKLAND, June 21. After speaking fox' three clays and a-half, Mr Northcroft concluded Ins address to the jury on behalf of the defence in the Bayly murder case shortly after 4.30 this afternoon. During the whole period he x-elied on brief notes only, divided under various heads, his actual address being mainly extempore. To-day counsel inferred to the fragments of clothing found at Bayly’s, then turning to the manner in which Mrs Lakey Ixad met her death. After criticising the Crown for not performing blood group tests, he traversed the conversations between Bayly and the police and the explanations made by Bayly, which he declared had not, been contradicted by any evidence. iOn resumption after the luncheon adjournment Mr Northcroft said he would deal with certain points showing Bayly’s innocence, although it was no part of the defence’s duty to establish Ids innocence. The first point was the matter of the blood on Bayly’s clothes. Had Bayly had human blood on his trousers he would have been in the utmost terror, he contimted. If Bayly could have allowed such incriminating material to remain on his trousers it would liavc been amazing., Bayly had visited Auckland, and on his return, when the police executed a search warrant, the ti'ousers had not been touched. In regard to the cut in the separator room, he had brushes, rags, and other materials to remove any traces of blood had he so desired. The most significant point indicating Bayly’s innocence was the shovel which stood in the cow shed with, according to the Crown, obvious traces left on it. The reason it had obvious traces was because of its innocent use at the fire to heat water to scald a pig. There could be a group of people at Lakey’s, there could be most desperate happenings at Lakey’s before Bayly would know anything about it, continued counsel. The accused had milked his cows regularly that week-end, and obtained proper returns of cream. If be bad been engaged in a desperate exxterprise and had taken the body to hjs cow shed he would never have got his cows in to pxilk them. Stevens had seen Lakey at 6.30 at a time when, according to Herbert, Bayly was actually engaged burning the body at his cow shed. “ There, as everywhere else on a proper examination, the Crown’s case is entii'ely untenable,” he declared. Bayly had allowed the police to take the boards thev believed to be incriminating, but which proved his innocence. When the accused objected to the police taking another board he offered a proper objection that if they were taken there would be no sledge loft. When the police returned later with a search warrant the front hoax'd of tlie sledge was still in the same condition.

* At all points Bayly’s conduct was manifestly that of an innocent and not a guilty mind,” submitted counsel, who said that when Bayly bad spoken to the police about draining the dip he bad pointed out the definite danger to stock, but after he knew the police were viewing the dip with suspicion be had done nothing in the way of removing the material later found there. This was one of the most significant points in the accused’s, favour. At no point in the case had there been the slightest explanation why it would profit Bayly to remove his ammunition and then declare that it had been stolen. It might have been to the advantage of some other person to remove the ammunition. The police had made no inquiries on those lines. Counsel said he would then trace Bayly’s alleged movements after G. 30, when Lakey was last seen alive. It was alleged that - Bayly had been able to move the cream cans at Lakey’s gate, shave the timber, rig the wheels to take the body, and move them back under tfie wattle tree, and bring the body to bis cow shed by the sledge. Then a fire had to bo lit and the body incinerated. That was not a task which could lie started and loft.

“ Do you believe that the man dare leave the incriminating and shocking task of burning a body before it was completely destroyed?” proceeded Mr Northcroft. Then when the ashes cooled they had to be distributed and the disturbance in the garden covered up. Next Bayly had-to cut the drum and clean the cow shed. This was what the Crown alleged that Bayly had done between the time he left Calvert’s and 9 o’clock the following morning, when the police telephoned him. Counsel contended that if there was old manure in the sack in the drum during the innocent fire. Bayly described to the police that would account for the minute fragments of bonedust in the lower portion of the drum. Had the bonedust been not merely in the bottom, but on the top lip, if the drum had been cut. as alleged by the Crown, that dust would have been dislodged by the vibration in the cutting. No such dust had been found in the upper portion, bearing out the accused’s statement that ho used the lower portion of the drum on a separate occasion. Counsel then dealt with the conversations between Bayly and the police officers, and the explanations and statements he had made to the detectives, declaring that the accused had been the object of suspicions in the district on which the Grown now invited the jury to convict him. At the time the letter to his wife was written the police had taken not only the oil drum, but the. bench, brushes, rags, and ropes covered with pigs’ blood. If Bayly had not suffered a breakdown in those circumstances it would be amazing, declared counsel, who referred to cases where innocent persons through fear had broken down.

Counsel again asked the jury whether it was not probable if Bayly had a guilty knowledge of incriminating material on his property, and knowing he was the object of suspicion, he would have removed it on the occasion when he came to Auckland. Had he been guilty, would he have retained the cartridge case as the Crown alleged? Again the accused could have placed the incriminating evidence on some other person’s property to divert suspicion. Mr Northcroft said he wished next to draw the jury’s attention to the explanation the accused had given the police of his movements that week-end. “ I challenge the Crown to advance a single circumstance to show in any item that Bayly was not telling the truth,”

He declared that there was not a scrap of evidence of any sort which disproved this statement. When the sledge marks were found the accused made a further statement in which ho said he had driven to the fence to inspect a telephone post. “In those two statements vou have the accused’s evidence as to what occurred. There is nothing in any statement by Bayly, either verbal or written, which the Crown can say is fa Ise,” declared counsel. In the course of numerous provocative conversations with tlm police, who hoped he would trap himself, in not so much as a single one did Bayly make a statement that was proved to be untrue. On the subject of motive there could be no two views. There was no allegation of a motive against Bayly, who, when he found he could not continue using the common outlet amicably with Lakey, went to the expensive course of obtaining a different route. Was it reasonable to suppose that, after spending a quiet Sunday afternoon with his friend Calvert, Bayly suddenly went bersek, rode to Lakey’s, and behaved like a demon P There was no evidence that Bayly was abnormal in any way. There was no motive shown, and the crime could not have happened without some horrible motive. There was no evidence that Bayly had ever been at Lakey's ar. all. The knife marks which had been dramatically saved till the end of the Crown’s case were a complete fiasco, and proved that Bayly’s knife had nothing to do with them. There was no evidence that the accused saw Mrs Lakey that day, and that the marks on her face were received in circumstances amounting to murder. The Crown had said that Lakey had been shot by Bayly, and in proof of that they had-produced two rifles, two cartridge cases, and a shotgun, all of which were placed before the jury. The Crown had not attempted to show how their mystifying muddle of rifles and shotgun had anything to do with the crime. The Crown had claimed that the body had been conveyed on wheels to the fence, and then lifted over—a superhuman task, as near an impossibility as it could be, and onewhich could not be performed without disturbing and staining the grass with blood, of which there was not a trace. In the same way the Crown was in difficulties in reconstructing the crime at Lakey’s. It was at a; loss what theory, to adopt in regard to the happenings at Bayly’s. There had been no proof that the burning of a human body could bo performed. as the experiments with sheep were not comparable. “ Can you conceive anyone taking the risk of transferring a body from Lakey’s to Bayly’s, as they say the accused did, on the off-chance of being able to burn it before a hue and fry was raised?” asked Mr Northcroft. The mere presence of tho guns and hones at Bayly’s place proved nothing. There was nothing else offered by the Crown against the accused beyond finding these on his property. The defence had shown how a third person not only could but must have been at Lakey’s that Sunday afternoon, where an altercation might have occurred in a number of ways, with the that Lakey or the other person received a bullet, causing, perhaps, death. In those circumstances, the charge of murder would not he against that poison who. fearing he would not be believed although perfectly innocent, would go to the length of disposing of the remains as it was alleged Bayly did. In no reconstruction of a fracas at Lakey’s could Bayly be the third person, as he'could not he there, nor could ho find ,the ammunition or other articles in a house to which he had not been a visitor for twelve months.

“ Lakey’s death has not been proved,” declared counsel. “ These remains are just as consistent with the burning of a Maori skull, an old sot of bones with false teeth, which had been placed to set a false train away from the wrong-doer, or some person afraid of being accused of wrong-doing.” The Crown had to prove that Bayly was at Lakey’s, that he assailed Mrs Lakey and destroyed her under criminal circumstances. In regard to Lakey, the Crown had to prove that Lakey had been killed, to prove that ho liad lost his life in a criminal proceeding, and then go further and show that Bayly was responsible. In conclusion, counsel stressed ’ho individual responsibility on the j iry in finding a verdict on the, evidence offered. The case must go far beyond the realms of suspicion. After Mr Northcroft had concluded. His Honour informed the jury that they would be taken to Rnawaro tomorrow. The foreman of the jury had stated that they wished to make a second visit to tho locality. The court then adjourned till Saturday morning.