MURDER TRIAL

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1931, Page 2

MURDER TRIAL

COATS FOUND : GUILTY SENTENCED TO DEATH, Telegraph —Per Press Association) v- » WELLINGTON, November 11. r Counsel for the defence concluding liis address ? suggested to the jury that they would prefer the evidence of De /“'Maine to most of the improbabilities .of a lover. He described the finding /ef the letter written by the girl to Glover, 'as one of the insoluble mysteries of the case. Everything was /very suspicious about the letter. Glov- \ er was very friendly with the, girl, and • must have known that the girl had suicidal tendencies. Was it not rea- -- sonable to suggest that the letter had been given to Glover for the purpose of protecting Coats anything like the present happened. No doubt the jury had been seeking a reason for Coats wanting to kill Phyllis Symons. I Counsel, continuing, said that the Crown did not; have to prove a motive - but wasn’t it reasonable to expect one to show itself. There was not a tittle of evidence in the whole of the Crown’s case to suggest that Coats < had wanted to get rid of Phyllis Sym- : ;i '"pns. Counsel concluded his address tvhich had occupied just under three ! ,; :hours, at the luncheon adjournment.

CROWN PROSECUTOR’S , ADDRESS.'

['-4: When the Coats’ trial resumed this 1 the. Crown Prosecutor adv i Itftesged. the; jury. He ,asked them to four facts' in' their mind, 'as 1 follows : (1) The association of the accused with the girl; (2) the motive that he had for getting rid of her; (3) the preparations* he made in tne attempt to get rid of the girl; («) and lastly his subsequent conduct after the girl ,had been buried. ■ H ~ The girl, the Crown contended, had • not been driven out of her home. She knew she was pregnant, and she had gone to Coats to assidfc her.. £ Th© Crown Prosecutor, in his address, ridiculed the fcontentfon that the ' incident related by Glover regarding

the alleged, attempt at an illegal operation was merely to put an end |;' i ';4id , ’ the' young' man’s' teasing of the girl. That act was typical of the aits ) tempt ,at bringing about a certain reH pult^r: ' * ' • v.;, !; • >, The* jury said counsel,' had heard (the evidence that Coats had been seen digging a Hole. Coats had given one t , explanation, namely, that he was go1,

ing to bury a clog—and -another explanation that the hole was for shelter. It was the Crown’s, contention

| that when he dug the hole, it was his jj • intention to' kill Phyllis and to bury U Her there. In Ctoatts’*ljwm* ■SBHWHWBt; l to the police, he said that five 'weeks } 'before lie had hit Phyllis over the ' head. Wat it not dear itliat it was the accused’s intention to get rid of j the girl. It .wag suggested that the ;v reason for failure,. alleged pre- ; viou-s Utempt wafifthat the accused ; lost hist I 'nerve. Afterwards the girl had continued to live/ with him, and that fact-, the Crown •. contended, showj led -how completely,;'she was under the accused’s dominance.

suggested that on. the 25th. of Juno,y it:-was Coats’ intention to kill and bury the girl on that , night.,.>That shown clearly by th© accused’s remark to one of /the men on the relief works. Glover and De Maine, however, arrived that jiigh/t to play cards, and it was suggested that the plot was abandoned ■until next day. y > The motive for the crime, it wa-s suggested, was that Coats was behind in the rent, and he had no prospects, and he was faced with having to hear the expense of maintaining a child. It was cleat/ that the injuries were due.to blows, and not to & fall, said cohnsel. The dead girl had stated in her letter th t she could not bring herself, up . to'the time git was written, to commit suicide. '

The Prosecutor asked: Might it net have been that the girl was willing to be murdered? The fact she might have consented was no tJefonoe. Was it not possible, then, that Coats placed the scarf round heT face, after the blow on the temple, and that when she showed signs of returning to consciousness, on being lowered into the grave, he struck her a /further blew, or blows? It was immaterial to the prosecution whetner the was buried alive or not.

The'Crown Prosecutor referred to the very striking position in which the body waft tViund, and said that it •was contended flint it was the position in which the girl died. The very shoes that had been produced, with their toos turned up, were consistent with the girl having made an attempt "to •Tisbijup from , the .ground. The prisoners story", regarding the position in which lie found the girl’s body ■ was v-aljnpst identical ►, with the medical' evidence, but ift was Likely in such a situation and in the dark that he could have rioted) all of the details that He }iad described. If Coats’ story was true, when he saw Phyllis lying on the embankment, what was it he first thing that he would do? .Wouldn’t he pull the scarf away from bier .face to see if she was breathing? That wag not done. Why? She was not there. Wlia.t'/'wasS’’ Wouldn’t he rush to the nearest' hpuvaand summon a doctor to try arid bring the girl to ? What had he to fear? Only the fact that he,-.was with the girl rit the time, and that would not makse Him criminally responsible. Wlmt did lie do? He rushed away, got a shovel, went down <to the bed of the lower tip, dug a. hole, and then he went up, got the

body, and put' it in the grave. If Coats had. been so anxious, would he liave gone back up the slope the second time to get the sack ? Coats had nothing to fear if he had been an innocent man. Were his acts the acts 0 f an innocent man? The Crown Prosecutor sugcgstecl that Coats’ acts were consistent only with his guilt.

THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE ANALYSED.

WELLINGTON, November 11

“Is it. reasonable to suppose,” said the Crown Prosecutor in the Coats’ case, referring to the medical evidence, “that the two eminent pathologists, of long Experience, who made the postmortem examination of the' girl’s body cannot distinguish between injuries duo to blows and injuries caused by a, wrench ;W| traction injury? Are you not aslJu): invrted in tbrnis, to my that Dr. Lynch and Dr. Hector are mistaken? 1 How couikl these anon, after a long and careful post mortem, possibly be mistaken in the evidence they have given? These other men have not made a post mortem examination. Two of thlsm have never seen the body. A medical man is not competent to express in this case an opinion of the causes of these injuries unless he was present at the post mortem?” The Crown Prosecutor concluded hv dealing at length wit}; the medical evidence in detail.

JUDGE SUMS UP

His Honour, in his summing up, commented at first on the necessity for clearing their minds of the effects which the publication of the earlier proceedings ipight. have produced. He said’: ‘‘tinfortunately, when a murder occurs, it ai once arouses ■ intense public 'interest, with the result that a certain amount of publicity is given ol the facts of the murder, and some papers even go to the length of publishing photographs before the case comes before the Court. Then, of course,” His Honour continued, in a murder case when it comes before the Lower Court, you have it reported. The Crown produces its case, but it is very rare for the defence to fully disclose, or in a capital charge to disclose at all, the nature of the defence which is intended to be raised, so that the reading of the reports of a murder case in the Magistrate’s Court may, perhaps, quite sub-consciously, ghc one an impression that one knows something about the case.” •He said that there were features in the case .also which touched the question of morals. The man was much older than the girl, and she came to ■live with him as mwa and wife. The Court however, was not considering the man’s morals. The circumstances of Jthe oaise were such that, if the man was guilty of anything, he was guilty bi murder,. ; possibility of rriahsiaughtfer could anywhere arise, His Honour Said in regard to the facts of the case, that it was remarkable that there was no dispute about most Of them. He did nht think it mattered very much for the purposes of the cause- how it had come about that the girl left home. His Honour went on to review parts of the evidence in detail. The borrowing of the shovel, he said, was strongly relied upon by the Crown. It was for the jury to say whether the accused’s explanation of this was feasible. Coats's explanation of the sack -was that it was used for decency’s sake. The Crown suggested that it had been used in order to conceal the body, and to mislead any ■workmen who might possibly see it. It was common ground, His Honour said, that the girl had died at the place where the accused had Been borrowing the shovel, and it was common ground that he had used the oreiy shovel he had borrowed for the pui pose of burying her. It was common ground too, that Coats had buried the body himself.

His Honour' said that the jury knew that when the police questioned Coats, he made a false, and very detailed explanation. His statements had Been accepted, and his explanation remained until he stepped into the witness box, and told an entirely different story. His Honour referred to two letters which Coats had written to near relatives, and in which he said he had got rid of the, girl. Those letters had been written by a man who came now to the 'Court and said that the girl committed suicide. 'The view to be taken of' that was a matter for the jury. ~ Certs had taken what was always regarded as a bold course, aad had given evidence himself. He pointed to several aspects of the evidence as lending support to his statements about the girl’s suicide, quoting the fact that the bladder was empty. If was for the jury to consider whether, il the girl went away from him with the intention of < committing su.cxle, sue would be particularly' concerned with the need to relieve herself.

. His Honour dealt next with the medical evidence. The Crown Prosecutor .at the end of his address -had made a quotation from a book with regard to medical witnesses, and His Honour had expressed the opinion that the remark and the quotation were not just lied. His Honour referred to it *m»,in in his sum-ming-up, and said that he did not think a responsible officer of the Court should make imputations with regard to the integrity of expert medical witnesses called for the defence. the doctors had come to Court from a sense of duty. However, there was not really very much conflict in the medical evidence. His Honour explained how the defence would have approached their medical men with Hr Lynch s report, and asked -friem whether the in-

(juries could have Been caused by a fall down the baiik. The doctors came to the Court, apd expressed their views ns to how in a. certain way and with a certain combination of circumstances, injuries could result from a fall. His /Honour dealt with the medical evidence in some detail, and said that the jury had to decide whether there was any doubt that the.girl’s injuries had been caused by blows. ' Alter speaking for shine time on the question of the bandage round the girl’s head, His Honour said that the, witness Do Maiire had been to a great extent discredited. In his concluding remarks His Honour said that the onus lay on the Crown to prove. Coats's guilt. The jury retired at 5.24 p.m.

VERDICT OF GUILTY. • AFTER THREE HOURS' RETIREMENT. , WELLINGTON, November 11. After a’ retirement of almost exad ly three hours, included in which was a break for the evening meal, the jun returned a verdict of guilty in Hutrial at the Supreme Court of Cl corgi /Errol Coats, labourer, aged 30, charge* with the murder of I‘hyll s Avis Symons, aged 17. THE DEATH SENTENCE. Asked if he had anything to say Coats said : ‘‘Nothing, except 1 am innocent, .and I th nk that prejudice has proved too strong. That's all !’■’ Coats showed no sign of- nervousnesr While the death sentence was being pronounced by Mr Justice Blaiy.

Leave to' move within five days for leave to appeal was granted.