EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY.
Seldom has a more singular case occupied the attention of a court of law than the charge of conspiracy to defraud the' North • Eastern Railway Company, which, after four days’ hearing before Mr Justice Mathew at the Durham Assize, terminated yesterday in a verdict for the defendants. The alleged conspirators are Dr Abrath and Michael 1 M'Mann, the firsta medicaliman,enjoying a large practice in Sunderland, and well-known for many years in that town, the second a young Irishman:of humble position, described by the somewhat elastic title of “ general dealer.’’- This rather oddly assorted pair were alleged to have been brought together through a collision which occurred on the NorthEastern Company's lino on. September 10, 1880. Mr M'Alann was a thirdclass passenger on that occasion, and a fews days afterwards, having consulted Dc Arbrath professionally, be made a claim upon the Company for; compensation, alleging ! that he had suffered injuries of a very severe kind. •His story was that the shock of the collision had thrown him from his seat on to the floor, where he came into violent contact with some Brazil nuts. These, it was alleged, cut through his dress, and . produced a couple of flesh wounds, which, however, were not held important,, except ;as evidence of the force, with which’lie was shot from his -seat. Hp affirmed that he had sustained other injuries,of a more obscure, le,ss mensurable, but much more serious kind, fnnd the medical officers of the, Railway .Company , were invited to recognise’tlje symptoms of shock and injury to the spinal cord, producing partial but probably progressive payalysis. One at least of the medical ! ,men employed by the company seems to have accepted the story, hut the other was scoptical as to the external woundg. having been produced in the way stated. HoWever, these wounds 1 were not really material and the 7 t,ryp doctors were S 6 far 'satisfied of thb reality of the more serious injuries; alleged to., have been sustained, ; that they would not take the responsibility of advising the Company to resist the claim. It was accordingly compromised by their paying £725 as damages, and a further sum of £3OO as costs. XJridub precipitatioWsinpafting with sums Of this magnitude is an error Of which railway companies are rarely accused by the most severe of critips. , And in this case the North-Eastern Company appear to have repented of their .promptitude. It somehow came to their, knowledge that the. draft for £725 had been cashed by Dr Abrath, who deposited £2SQ in the joint names of himself and two other gentlemen of unquestionable respectability, and took the remainder with . him in notes.. ; Ip ,an r un|ucky moment the officials of the company Conceived the suspicion that Dr Abrath l|ad converted the £475 to his own Uses, and their minds, once iihbued with this idea, became eagerly receptive of corroborative information, which - was abundantly.supplied. They - were, -told that the two wounds, supposed to hare been made by nutshells were really old scars of eleven years’‘standing, which Dr Abrath had lanced and; treated with irritating liquids for 1 the puVpose of deceiving the Company’s doctors., They further learned that tlje depression ascribed to shock and spinal injury .'jras .really nothing but the result of a regimen of dry bread,and weak tea, to which Dr Abrath confined Ills accomplice when a show of distress had to be made to their doctors. The Company did not obtain all this important information for nothing, on the .contrary, they must have spent a great deal of money in police investigations, which were doubtles made with all the far-seeing sagacity that usually marks the operations of the force," and might have, proved invaluable but for tli6 circumstances that they were carried on among relatives and friends of M'Mann, who, until he heartlessly refused them a share of his damages, were ready to swear to the genuine character of his claim. Th o conversion of these rogues to the ways of honesty was not, however, held tq detract from the trustworthiness of their statements; and the Company formulated against Dr Abrath apd bis patient the grave charge of conspiracy to defraud. During the earlier stages of the trial everything went well for the Company. Their witnesses came up to the scratch fiko men, and produced by their joint labors a complete catena of circurn stantial evidence. One swore that he was in the carriage with M'Mann when the accident happened, and that his back never touched the floor, on which the were no nutshells. Another accompanied M'Mann to Dr Abrath’s, and noticed that when ho returned from the interview ho “ seemed changed,” The. same witness averred that Dr Abrath was constantly looking him up in public houses to bid him “ keep his heart up." and to inform him that he would ‘ l make Mr Kail way sit up.” Another witness averred that the doctor said there was nothing to go upon but the: sears, and that ho out them open afresh each time tho Company’s doctors
were expected, dressing them with a lotion that made M'Maun bite the bed clothes in agony. In tliis way a really formidable case’was got up against the two defendants, a case which would have seemed unanswerable hut for a certain nuance of doubt as to tho entire trustworthiness of the witnesses. - The first said'he had’not been “ in trouble” more, than 30 times. The second admitted that he had been convicted of horse stealing. The next had been fined for deserting*~from" the militia, and, like a fourth, is now in the nay of tho Railway Co. AH had signed statements in the office of M'Mann’s solicitor in;support of the claim they came to rebut,' and determined l ' on perjuHn'g themselves when they found that fir Abrath did not mean to let them have M'Mann’s money.: In these circumstances it is not very wonderful that the Judge commented with some severity upon the character of the Company’s witnesses, or that tho jury, after hearing evidence for the defence, returned a verdict of “Not guilty,” .after five minutes' consultation, appending to it a strong expression of their opinion that Dr Abrath left tho Court without a stain on his character.—“ Times.”
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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2814, 31 March 1882, Page 2
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1,036EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY. South Canterbury Times, Issue 2814, 31 March 1882, Page 2
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