PROSECUTION DELAY

Evening Star, Issue 24330, 20 October 1942, Page 2

PROSECUTION DELAY

CHIEF JUSTICE CRITICAL (P.A.) PALMERSTON i\., Oct. 20. In the retrial of Charles Gough, branch secretary of the Dairy Factory Workers’ Union in the Supreme Court on a charge of making a subversive statement to the employees of the Oroua Downs Dairy Factory on February 24, the jury disagreed for the second time. Formal application for a" third trial was made by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr Cooper. This was held ver in order to enable him to communicate with the Attorney-General.

Strong comment was made by the Chief Justice, Sir M. Myers, about the time taken in authorising the prosecution to proceed. Whatever one might think about the case, he said, there was no use shutting one’s eyes. The evidence in the case was available in April, the incident at Oroua Downs having taken place on February 24; but for some reason, or other it was not until August 20 that the AttorneyGeneral gave his consent—two days before the expiration of the six months within which the law required a prosecution to be commenced “ It would surprise me very much if that did not have a considerable effect on the minds of the jury. Seven hundred years ago there was extorted from a despotic, recalcitrant king a Charter of English liberty, in which it was stated that justice shall not be delayed. This man Gough was entitled to know long before the expiration of six months whether or not he was to be prosecuted. It is unfair to him and to the country. It is a matter which should not have taken more than twenty minutes to decide. If that had been done, this rase would have been dealt with in Mav instead of October.”

If there was to be another trial it would be delayed to February, His Honour added.