CAST AWAY !

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 328, 31 January 1902, Page 4

CAST AWAY !

(Truth.) Those of the public whose curiosity took them to the Supreme Court saw llie concluding scene in one of the most remarkable criminal cases that has yet been tried in this colony. The prosecution of Mumford, Kerry, and Freke for having cast away the yacht Ariadne will probably long remain the most interesting and one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the local Hall of Justice. The -yacht Ariadne, the jury found, had been wilfully wrecked on the New Zealand coast, but the jury also affirmed that Kerry, the owner of the yacht, who had “ got her practically as a gift,’’ and would receive £IO,OOO insurance in the event of her being wrecked, was not guilty of the crime which he was accused by the Crown. The extraordinary feature of the case, therefore, is that Mumford, the captain of the yacht, who entertained, apparently, no feelings of ill-will towards his employer, should have not only committed this dastardly crime without hope of reward, because the jury found Kerry innocent, but that he should have endeavored to implicate tne owner of the vessel by informing Captain Willis that Kerry had promised him£4oo to do the job, and by forging an agreement embodying this promise. For this amazing action of Mumford s there is no obvious explanation, and it can only be supposed that the man was suffering from some peculiar mental aberration which involved him in crime, and made him more or less irresponsible. Why else should he have endangered the lives of his crew and destroyed the property of liis employer it is difficult to conceive. Apparently his position as master of a well-equipped yacht of such dimensions was a satisfactory one, and there is no evidence that his previous character had been at all shady. Yet the jury found that he did deliberately cast away the yacht Ariadne, and that he did so without the connivance of iiis employer, and, consequently, without hope of reward, for it was not suggested by the Crown that anyone else might have induced Mumford to commit such an abominable crime. While we must agree with His Honor that there was no impropriety in Captain Willis employing the only means in his power to open Mumford’s mouth and obtain from that individual an . refraud to which the latter resorted m order to obtain the sum promised him by Captain Willis shows very clearly the value of the clause in the statute book which prevents the police from endeavoring to obtain evidence by similar means. Mumford, having committed one crime and wrecked the Ariadne, was tempted by the prospect of obtaining £4OO to commit another, and lie forthwith not only told a circumstantial story implicating Kerry and asserting that Kerry had paid him to cast the yacht away, but he backed his story with a forged agreement which even deceived the Crown, and induced the prosecution to not oniv prosecute Kerry, hut also an innocent youth named Freke, against whom—hut for Mumford’s forged agreement —there would not have been a shadow of a case. It is easy to see what a labyrinth of falsehood the Crown might not infrequently be compelled to unravel in many of the cases which come before the Court, if such methods of obtaining evidence were allowed, and how often the gravest injustice might unwittingly he done. Happily, in this 'important case, the prosecution was itself enabled to detect the fraud which had been practised, and the ends of justice were, consequently, not defeated by it. There are other considerations which this unique case invites. It is easy to believe that had Kerry been less skilfully defended, the machinations of his servant Mumford might have been sufficient to implicate him still more seriously in the eyes of the jury. lie may congratulate himself upon the ableness of his defence, and the skill with which his counsel disposed of Uie web of suspicious circumstances which seemed to surround him, and induced the Grown to take action, ft is possible for a clumsy defence to endanger Die liberty of an innocent man. Kerry’s counsel made no such mistake. The case leads us to reflect how necessarv it is that sea captains should he men of the highest character. Most New Zealand skippers, luckily, are men of the best character and intelligence, but it is evident that the greatest care ought to be taken by all countries to provide such tests for master mariners as to ensure only educated and (as far as intelligence and training can make them) trustworthy men being placed in such positions ’of responsibility and trust. In their hands are the lives of all on hoard, and although the jury has found that it was not so in the Ariadne case, the temptation to run an over-insured vessel ashore must occasionally he held out to them by unscrupulous owners.