FOUND NOT GUILTY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 24 November 1927, Page 3

FOUND NOT GUILTY

MURDER CHARGE AGAINST BOAKES HIS HONOUR'S SUMMING UP AGREES WITH JURY’S VERDICT Christchurch, Nov. 24. After counsel for Charles William Boakes and counsel for the Crown had addressed the jury, His Honour, summing up, referred to th© danger of bias in the minds of jurymen from the unhealthy and mischievous publication of a rumour and conjecture concerning the case. The evidence, he said, was all circumstantial, and the jury must be satisfied that the facts were inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that the person charged was the guilty person before they could bring in a verdict of guilty. There was no evidence before the Court of intimacy between the prisoner and the woman Scarff, although counsel for the defence had concede 4 there might have been intimacy. His Honour reviewed at length the ■ events between June 8 and June 15. “You saw King and heard his evidence,” said His Honour,- “and yqu might conclude that you would not hang a cat on any evidence he might give.” He warned the jury that if they believed he had lied in Court they must not assume thereiore lie spoke the truth on former occasions. The jury must close its eyes and minds to any statements made by King outside of the witness box. I’hey must make their minds blank to what he said in the Magistrate’s Court. His Honour, referring to the main proved facts of the case, said the jury would find it impossible to show Boakes’ direct connection with these facts. There was nothing to justify the attaching of a sinister meaning to the interview between Boakes and the girl between June 8 and June 11. He referred also to the evidence of the boy, Mugford. “That man he saw at the scene of the murder was a smaller man than Boakes. There is no fact in connection with the spanner which identifies it as leaving been in the possession of the accused. You must fill up some of the gaps in the evidence by reasonable inferences or guesswork before you ar e able to say there is any proved connection between the accused and the military overcoats. I have been asked to lule that there is no evidence to go before you at all, and to make a direction to you to that effect. I confess I have had some hesitation in the matter, but I have decided to leave it to you. The jury, after a - retirement of less than an hour, returned a verdict of not guilty. The Judge said he entirely approved of the jury’s verdict. On the minor charge of having supplied a noxious drug, Boakes was remanded until November 30. Bail of £lOO in his own recognisance was allowed.