POLICE NOT TIED.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 311, 24 October 1929, Page 5

POLICE NOT TIED.

ELSIE WALKER CASE. Charge Can be Laid. “ The good people of Auckland seem to be barking up the wrong tree as regards the Elsie Walker case,” remarked a well-known Wellington solicitor to a Wellington Post representative. “ It may be that the law in New Zealand needs altering so as to allow under certain circumstances the reopening of an inquest. But to say that the course of justice is being hindered by the inability to have the inquest reopened is a wide departure from the truth.

“ A Coroner’s verdict, whether definite or indefinite, does not conclude a case. The police, if they have sufficient evidence in their hands, can proceed against any person or persons regardless of the Coroner’s finding, to which they are in no way bound. In the Elsie Walker case the Coroner’s verdict was indefinite, but that does not mean that no further steps can be taken to sheet home the crime, if. crime it was, until the law is so amended that the inquest can be reopened. If the police have ad- . ditional evidence, as is suggested, and this is strong enough to warrant the bringing of a definite charge against some person, one may be sure that this will be done without delay.” It was pointed out that the Coroner has discretionary powers to admit all kinds of evidence at an inquest, much of which niight in a criminal court not be legal evidence. The evidence given at an inquest might be very useful to the police, but they might not be legally able to use it all when it* came to making a definite charge against some person subsequently. “ To imagine that the Elsie Walker case is definitely concluded because the Coroner has returned a verdict which does not accuse any person is erroneous, as is also the idea of blaming the Minister of Justice for delaying the course of justice by refusing to be hurried into amending the law as regards the opening of inquests, and in no way are the hands of the police tied.” In New Zealand inquests can be reopened, apparently, only if there has been some illegality in their conduct. In England the law is somewhat different, and inquests can be reopened for other reasons. This is exemplified in the famous Bravo poisoning ease of 1876. Charles Bravo was a solicitor who died of antimony poisoning, and the jury at the inquest returned a verdict of suicide. The relatives, however, were not satisfied, and finally obtained an order for the exhumation of the body. A fresh inquest was held, one which lasted three weeks, and at the end the second jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.