ALLEGED SEDUCTION.

NZ Truth, Issue 64, 8 September 1906, Page 4

ALLEGED SEDUCTION.

Filthy Faggot's Fairy-tale Floated.

A Free Lover Fails and Falls In.

At the Invercargill Supreme Court last week a curious suit for damages for seduction came on before Mr Justice Cooper and a jury. In the case m question the father of a girl named Lizzie Paul sued a man named King for £500 for the seduction o{ his daughter. . It was alleged by plaintiff that the defendant had taken advantage of this girl aged 17 years, while she was m. service at King's, and had repeatedly been intimate with her. The girl, m evidence, showed that she was very dull-witted, and accused defendant of using most disgustingly foul language at the time of these intimacies with her, but admitted that two , young men named O'Neill and Phillips had also been intimate with her. the latter, she alleged, before defendant had. When the case for the plaintiff had closed, counsel for defence raised, the point of there being insufficient corroborative evidence of the girl's statement to send the case before a jury, but said that he would rather send the case to them if his Honor would reserve his decision on that point. Judee Cooper concurred with counsel's request. The defence raised was a total denial of the girl's story. Evidence was given by Dr. Green. Insnector Mitchell and Detective Mcllvenev to/ the. effect that lyine bizzie had stat-- 1 ed that the only men who had hW anything to do with her were Q'Neill and Phillips. Further the witnesses ; declared that m their conversations with the girl; the name of King .'was never once referred to as having been intimate with her.

In summing; up the case, his Honor very fulW reviewed the evidence, ' and remarked that it was one of the ' most remarkable cases that had ever ' come before him. He said that tjfc question of damages was comparatively unimportant, the' real questfor being whether the girl's story could be believed. The charge was 'that a man, against whose moral character nothing had been previously alleged, seduced a girl under most extraordinary surroundings, and with a degree of sensuality and abomination of conduct that was difficult to imagine. She was uridoubtedlv dull m intellect and with apparently no moral sense at all. She admitted' intercourse with Phillips night after night O'Neill night after night, and with defendant day after day: yet did not annear to know she had done any wrohq-. A charge of this nature must : be corrofotorated, and the onus af^fcha,^ corroboration naturally rested with plaintiff. He felt bound to . r»oint out the lack of this proof, and conducted^ by sayin"- that m his opinion girl's statements were incredible/inconsistent, and do not justify paw m bringm- m a verdict m DlSintiff's favor. You are m no way bound by my opinion, but I would not be doing mv duty to you jururnen if I did not Five it. . ' .

The jury, after a shprt retirement, found a, verdict for the defendant and declared him innocent of the charges Mr Justice. Cooper said he fullm endorsed "the jury's finding '* "■'