STRANGE REQUEST
MAN’S LlF'k. AT STAKE.
FRIENDS GO TO PICTURES.
BRISBANE, November 25
Just how. ■to,.tlie men of the north of Australia? .Thi s wa s the' question-..-aroused at the Supreme Court a t/Parwin by. one of the strangest requests ever put to a Judge trying a man for lii,s life.
When Judge .Wells, decided ;to sit. late to avoid locking lip the jury, seven witnesses from -aincuthack station, who see civilisation perhaps once in every three years, asked if they, could be excused, as they wanted to go to the pictures. ::
Judge Wells lifted his eyebrows, shrugged hi.s shoulders, and agreed. -While the witnesses, were away he sen fenced to death a man who had been their comrade for many years. The case was one in which Ernest Moray Baker, part-owner of Binmarcb station on the Darkly tableland, was found guilty of murder.
The jury added a strong recommendation to, mercy on the grounds that Baker's ill-health, business worries- and disappointment in a love affair all tended-to unbalance hi s mind. Baker is the first white man sentenced to death in the North for 40 years.
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Hokitika Guardian, 29 November 1933, Page 6
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187STRANGE REQUEST Hokitika Guardian, 29 November 1933, Page 6
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