CROWN PROSECUTIONS.-POVERTY BAY ASSAULT CASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5387, 3 July 1878, Page 3

CROWN PROSECUTIONS.-POVERTY BAY ASSAULT CASE.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —I have refrained, whilst this case was sufr jtuiice, from writing to you on the subject; but, inasmuch as the Grand Jury have to-day thrown out the Bill, it is now a fair matter for criticism. la the first place, talcing the depositions themselves, there is nothing more than a common assault. Two parties meet; one proposes the Queen’s health; the other says, “ D-—u the Queen,” &c.: when the party so proposing her health sprang from his horse, and struck.the. offending Irishman iu the mouth. It is only right to state that the epithet attributed to the prosecutor is denied by him. Be it so? Still is there anything more than a common assault ? Is there the slightest element ■to make it an assault, with intent to do grievous bodily harm. No weapon is used beyond what : nature has supplied to every man, woman, and child. Yet the Resident Magistrate deems it his duty to send the case for trial to Wellington, a distance of 600 miles, thereby putting the country to probably £IOO expense, if not more. What is the result ? Why, the Grand Jury very properly ignore the Bill, and unanimously record a protest that it was a case that never ought to have been sent to them. Surely if an offence was committed at all, it could not have been magnified beyond a common assault, which might have been : dealt with in a summary manner by the Magistrate. Hefe is another example for doing away with the Grand Jury system of. finding bills in criminal cases. Had we a public prosecutor, 'as iu Victoria, whose duty it is to examine all depositions as they are received from the various petty Courts, and ascertain and decide whether there is on the face of the depositions themselves sufficient ground for putting the accused on his trial—in fact, to exercise the same functions as the Grand Jury does her© ; then if, as iu the present case, it was deemed there was no prima facie case for a common jury, the officer delegated with the powers of Public Prosecutor would telegraph to the committing magistrate, or police ■ officer having charge of the case, that there was no necessity to send the witnesses to town, as the Crown did not intend to proceed with it. In the present case, I respectfully contend that it was essentially ft case in which the Crown ought to have relegated the prosecution to the injured or offended party. , Had. this been done, I am pretty certain the . time of the Grand Jury would not have been wasted, and the country would have been saved a considerable sum of money for bringing witnesses, iucludiug a medical man (Dr. Pollen), all the way from Gisborne.—l am, &c., W, Wilfrid Wilson.