Page 3 Advertisements Column 3

Hokitika Guardian, 4 August 1928, Page 3

JUDGE SPEAKS' OUT. AUCKLAND, Aug. 3. Outspoken comment was made by Judge Reed in the Supreme Court today in a case in which Alexander H rv Martin, aged 26, a former law cierk, was charged with indecently assmiting n. niJilc. ' The jury returned a verdict of mot miiltv,” the foreman stating that the fury'was dissatisfied wjjh the lapse ot time between the date of the information being laid and the date of the statement taking from the boy con-l^ the jury Ims found you not guilty,” said His Honour. They perhaps do not know you were tried last February for almost the same offence on a boy in very much the same circumstances as the present, course, vou were found “not guilty then and vou have been found not iruiltv” to-day, but a pitcher may go to the well too often. I strongly advise vou not to carry boys about in vour motor car in future, because

the" tliii'd jury my not be quite so friendly/ Asking the boy who bad been Hie principal witness, to stand up. His Honour said: “I think you have bcliaved exceedingly well in connection with this matter. You did a duty to the public in reporting a case such as this. I am sure the fact that the jury has found the prisoner not guilty does not express any view of theirs that your story is untrue. The' simply think that, through lapse of time, some mistakes have been made, but should anyone suggest that your story is untrue,' you have the assurmice that the Judge who presided believed your story.”