NEW TRIAL ORDERED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 477, 5 October 1928, Page 13

NEW TRIAL ORDERED

SALVATIONIST’S EVIDENCE DISALLOWED APPEAL COURT’S DECISION Press Association WELLINGTON, Thursday. A new trial in the case, Rex v. Robert McConkey, was allowed by the Court of Appeal this afternoon. On the Bench were Justices Reed, Ostler, MacGregor and Blair. Mr. A. C. Fair, Solicitor-General, appeared for the Crown,, and Mr. H. R. Cooper for the accused. The court agreed that the evidence of Captain Thorn, a Salvation Army officer, who visited McConkey while he was awaiting trial, should hot have been admitted. Accused was arrainged at the last criminal sittings of the Supreme Court at Palmerston North upon an indictment that he did on June 30, 1928, indecently assault a female. The case advanced by the Crown was that accused was stepfather of the girl; that she was under the age of 16 years; that accused committed the act as deposed to by the girl; and that her consent, if it did exist, which the Crown denied, was no defence. Apart from proof that she was under the age of 16 years it was open to the jury to find on the evidence either that the girl did or did not consent to the alleged acts. The girl stated in her evidence that she was 15 years of age, a birth certificate showing this being produced by the Crown. Counsel for the defence, however, submitted that a birth certificate could carry no weight unless evidence proving that the girl was the one named was produced.