ALLEGED PERJURY.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1917, Page 7

ALLEGED PERJURY.

TBIAL OP MRS. SEPTON. VERDICT OF KOT QUE3X. At the Supreme Court, New Plymouth, .yesterday, the heaving of the ease was continued in which May Seftou was charged with having on May 15th last, during the rase heard before Mr. Justice Hosking, in which she recovered damages from one Lowry 'Baskin. committed perjury by falsely swearing that she had been only orce in a motor car .with one Lopdell, whereas in truth and in fact she had been in the car with Lopdell on more than one occasion. TL.. accused, for whom Mr. A. H. Johnstono appeared, had pleaded not guilty, and on the previous day all the evidence for the prosecution and defence had been taken, counsel's address being adjiumed till yesterday at 9 a.m. The following formed the jury:— Messrs A. Alexander (foreman) Louis Chivers, James Austin, W. H. Huggett, -C. H. Old, J. Holmes, junr., Barrett Honevfield, J. I. Thomson, William Palmer, J. F. (Shepherd, E. T. ltolden, ; W. 13. Kivell.

COUNSEL'S ADDRESS.

Mr. Johnstone said he would venture ;o state that no more painful case had iver been heard witliin the four walk )t that eourt than the one with which ;he jury now had to deal. Here was a Wing married woman, the wife of a aboring man, and with two small child■on, who found herself in the prisoner's lock charged with the serious and disgraceful crime of perjury. The circumstances were all known to the jury, am they must havo realised that the womai lad been a pawn, a mere pawn, in th< leadly game between Baskin and Lop lell, the county engineer. She had comt nto the game incidentally. Baskin him self had sworn that he had never seei ler before the first week in December md that he had never at any time hat i conversation with her, and yet at th. Stratford County Council meeting he ha< wade a speecu, the meeting being a pub ic one, at which reporters were present in which he had charge 3 her" with trav elling about the country at all Limes o the day aid night with the county en "ineer in the county motor-car. In tha 3peecß he had slandered the woman i her most valued possession, her virtui had made allegations calculated '* irouse the suspicions and destroy th sonfidenco of her husband, destroy th respect and love of her two young child ren, blast her character for all timi and ruin her f>r life. She brought a action to vindicate .her character, bt :ausc he had offered no apology and eve it tlie trial, on the previous day he ha again asserted thai, what he had said a the Stratford Comity Council was tout She had been compelled to bring th previous action to clear her characte wd she Bid so, the jury awarding her lerdict of damages, not one penny ( ivhich had yet been paid. Baskin's es :use was that all he had meant in hi speech was that Lopdell wa3 using tt Motor-car at the coimty's expense fc )lher than county purposes, but tha j.wusc hud not availed him and he detei mined to drag her before the court o i criminal charge ,of perjury. At th irevious trial therj had been uo ev: tence aa to the incidents now allege igainst Mrs. Sefton, although they coul lave been gone into had Baskin cliosei Jaskin laid low for two and a lial Donths and then laid the crimins barge. He had probably said to liimsei hat as he had not succeeded in Wastin, the woman's character he would tea her from her home, her husband, an her children, and send her to. tho awfi ordeal of a prison. But th matter was now in the hands of th jury, because fortunately, by tho law o the land, such cases must be tried b; twelve men, and by thtin, an' them only, decided on the cadence. Now, it was neeessar; in this case for the Crown to prove tha the statement made by Mrs. Sefton ii the previous action, that she had onl; been once in the motor car with Lopdell was untrue and had beeu made with th object or" misleading the court, but wha object could she have had in attci;iptin. to mislead ? She was ciiarged, by inter ence, with adultery, with infidelity ti her hus&and, and with being ra thi motor car with Lopdell on a number o occasions. If shs had been in the cai with Lopdell on more than ono occasion *h y should she have denied it! Wha harm could there have been ju her goins about in the car in broad daylight Every incident sworn to bv the Crovn witnesses was in daylight, and if sho hat been in the car on frequent occasions i must have been known to practical! every person in a small place like Mid hirst, lie submitted that no woman ii Jer senses would, under such eirami t*ances, come forward and teil such ■■ H« as liad been alleged, and that shi could have had no object whatever in at tempting to mislead. He submitted tha the witnesses for the Crown had made : taistake a,s to the identity of the woman and the question of identity was th. main question on which the issue wouh turn. None of the witnesses except Bas kin claimed to have seen Mrs. Sefton ii the car with Lopdell on more than on.

occasion, and most of them swore to her

■being in a moving ear, in some cases with tbe hood raised, and in otters with •the woman well covered up. Under these conditions it would ho easy to make a 'mistake in identity! end in tUnt connection it must be considered bow much the witnesses had known of Mrs. Sefton. '■Not one of them Ipiow hej well, and he thought only one of them had spoken■to her, and there was not a particle of evidence that phe had giv«n any of them even a nod of recoguftkm. There had been no oppoi .unity for them to aee her

fnll form or to judge of her manner or .her bearing; on each occasion she was Mated in a low-wsated motor ear and ■was seen only for a few seconds as th?

car whisked hy. It would he' idle for the probation to suggest that these •people had an opportunity of taking sufficient notice to enable ihem to positively identify. There had heen no sugges-

'tion of anything suspicious till after February 20, and he ventured to say that when Baskia's allegations heca-mo known, people would at once he inclined to the opinion that the woman referred to must have lieen the same woman as they lu.d seen in the car the previous •week c-r on some other occasion. Assum-

fag. that the breath of scandal had got ■about, and then a woman was seen in 'the' car with LopdeU. the first conclusion many would come to was that it was the same wonwi as the talk was about, a mistake of inference drawn from Hie •circumstances.

He wanted to assure them thai what he was saying was no mere trick of advocacy, no trick of a maai paid to secure the acquittal of a prisoner by specious argument, but a view of the value o.' circumstantial evidence and evidence of identity held by the highest legal auth-

|-orstfes. Be reatl fram ihe reported dl *)ervaiirW of an eminent judge, wto mentioned some extraordinary coses o miataik«n identity, especially iratanein; one in which the identity of a, \WMaaii who was acquitted, charged with ehik stealing, was sworn to by eleven wit nesses, and subsequent' the identity o another woman, the culprit, w sworn-to by thirteen, the judge lia< remarked, such circumstances made oni tremble in contemplating the dangers o; evidence as to identity. He (counsel] put to tho gentlemen of the jury, how often had they spoken to men on tin street whom they thought they knew how often'had they lifted their hats ti a lady, to ho rewarded only with ; frosty stare? How many of them coufc bwear positively to the identity of i man they only knew slightly, or to tin identity of a woman they only saw pass mg in a motor car? The evidence in thi ease had coino from honest witnesses who believed what they thought thei: eyes had seen; but what should be con sidered, and very carefully considered was what opportunities they had fo: forming the judgment at which they ar rived. • On the previous day ho submittei that there was no corroboration of th statement made by tho witnesses for th Cirown, but he had been over-ruled b; bus Honor, at least for the time being. Young and Taylor had certainly spok m of the game alleged occasion, hut i vad been shown that thoy had come to rether to Xe-w Plymouth at the time o -,he slander case, and had together flxei ;he date of that occasion. Independen ividence as to other occasions had bee) dven by other witnesses, but not one o; hem had been corroborated, and hi itrongly submitted that it would hi ibsolutcly wrong for the jury to convic >n that evidence. What had been th' lature of Ba&km's evidence? "fe ha< seen Mrs. Sefton for the first time whei she was in the county car, and yet In md recognised her. He had given evi lence in the previous case of two occa dons, and now he came to the court witl three occasions. The third occasion ha< lot been previously mentioned,' and -hai not even been known to counsel for tin >own. He (Mr. Johnstone) had heel ible to establish by the evidence of ai ndependent witness that on that occa uon the car was laid up in a garage a Eltham. He did not think it was neces sary to labor the case so far as th evidence for the defence was concerned Witnesses for the Crown said they Mrs. Sefton in tho car, but he submittei that what they did see was a woman i; the car whom they subsequently believei to be Mrs. Sefton, and as Mrs. Seftoi identified her. As to Mr. Harkness' evi dence, well he knew Mrs. Sefton .slightly but had not been introduced to her til after the occasions to which he testified and he had admitted that he once ad dressed Mrs. Sefton's sister-in-law a "Mrs. Sefton." Mr. Hafkness had hai opportunities of seeing Mrs. Sefton frc quently, but only testified to seeing he once in tho car, and on that occasion counsel submitted, the woman he sav was Mrs. Lopdeil, and not Mrs. Sefton Kleeraan had seen her on one occasion and might have seen her on others, bu hadn't bothered his hea'd. What was thi evidence of a man worth who nevei bothered his head? The jury would b< justified in disregarding his evidence a; the result of an honest* mistake."- Cook son had said that he saw Mrs. Sefton In the car on York Road on February 4. but Swain, called for the defence, had sworn that the car was in the garage at Eltham from .February 2 till a week later. Mrs. Lopdeil said she was in the car on York road on one occasion about that time, but could not fix the exact date. Swain'.-; evidence was entitled to every credence, because he had come there fully conscious of his responsibility/ and fully aware of the danger to which lie wa*j closed by the ruthlessness of Baskin. Baskin had even threatened a reporter in connection with the matter. It was, however, quite clear that the county car could not have been on the York Head on February 4. And now they came to the evidence of YoUng and Taylor. It went back to December, and Young had let the cat out of the bag by stating that the two of them had eome to Now Plymouth together and had rollaborated in fixing the date. No doubt the scandal had been -talked about at the dairy factory and elsewehre, and Young and" Taylor bad been convinced that some woman they saw in the car at some time or other was Mrs. Sefton. As to Miss Keightley, she had added to the evidence given by her in the lower court md her evidence had been absolutely unjorroborated. For that reason he the jury to dismiss it. Snooks' evidence was simply that he was passed on the road by.a motor ear in which was the engineer, and a woman who, he said, was Mrs. Sefton. But Sn >aks had also said that he was standing at a corner one night when the car stopped opposite him and Mr. and M'ts. Sefton got out. This Sefton denied, but ''.ad it been true the iefence would have boon glad to have udmittcd it, husband and wife being together, and it was solely in support of ihe truth (if their story that it had been lenied. His (Mr. Johnstone's case was to prove a negative, and that could only <i(> satisfactorily done when they had lates and details to deal with. Had ;hey been made aware of specific allegations with regard to alleged i incidents, Sts. Sefton and Lopdeil might 'have been ible to ascertain where tliey were and ,vhat they were doing on theso dates. He was not going to say there was a likeness between Mrs. Lopdeil andtfrs. Sefton, but he did say that to nistake one for the other under the lireumetanca? disclosed by the evidence yould liave been easy. What the witnesses liad seen was a darJc li.dy in the uotor car, and they assumed the Test -cause they thought what they saw vc what they expected to see. The ury must not be satisfied even if they :onsidered Mrs. Sefton's evidenco suslicioua, but must be morally certain hat she was where the Crown witnesses laid she had been. Counsel again quoted the eminent judge previously referred :u with regard to the great care that nust be exercised in'dealing with evilenet of identification, and on the founds laid down by that, authority, .übniitted that the evidence biiforo the ury was not sufficient for even a light .■ase, much less for a case of .such gravity as this, a case in which the charicter and even the liberty of a woman «as at stake. The jury held the balinee'. If they found that the scale veightcd with evidence against Mrs. Sefon was weighted low down they must ind her guilty, but even if the scale? vcre only equally balanced it would be heir duty to return a verdict of not ;uilty. If thi:e had been a caso in vhich a prisoner was entitled to the lenefit of any doubt, this assuredly was uch u case. He did not wish to labor

the case, but the jury would realise how grave and great had been his rcsporuihilitv. how great the torturing anxiety of Mrs. Sefton for some time past, and as she then sat in court within, as it were, the shadow of the gaol walla. He had now to leave her in the hand* of the jury, and he did so in the confident hope that thoy would deal with her as men who loved justice and hated

oppression. EBb naked them to eanflitta tiie widened with scrupulous casq, to give tins prisoner the feanoflt of 007 ceil doubt tb*i might oxjat, and ha was safcia&id tint ii they did so tiny wold ba committing thair iattoniKi.it and tendeepest conseie»ee», and in the future would lie able to lode back to their services to t&e <wuntacy with complete and eminent satisfaction. ADDRESS xXJR THE GROWN.

Mr. H. K. Billing, in addressing the jury, said it would not be necessary for him to detain them long. The main, point was whether the words used by Mrs. Sefton in tire -previous case were true or false. If they had heard the evidence for the Crown alone .he thought: they might have found thie prisoner,' guilty of perjury, hut they had heard I bor evidence and that of the. other witnesses for the defence, and it was now a case of deciding between the two parties. He would draw their attention to Ok fact thwt it did not matter that the prisoner waa a young married woman, that her huband war; a laboring man, or that, she had t(wo children. These circumstances were quite apart from the question the jury had to decide. It did not matter whether the prisoner had two children or none at all in deciding the question as to whether I or not she had committed perjury. Then : as to the allegations of her being in the j car on certain occasions with Lopdell'" I not having previously been brought out, [ he did not think the jury need give it much attention, 'because after hearing the allegations in the present case Mrs. Sefton had gone into tho witness-box and repeated her previous story. The comr.iaint against Baskin wias that ho had accused the woman of having sexual intercourse with the county engineer, and that she had been seen in the car with him several times, but Baskin had denied that he had imputed adultery. The jury in the previous -case liad prooable 'been influenced in estimating the damages by Mrs. Sefton's statement that she had been in the car with Lopdell only once.' They, might on thaievidence have decided to give 'her a 1 heavy sum and make Baskin pay heavily for the 'slander, ibut without her, evidence they might have concluded that" she had been flying around the county in the car with 'Lopdell and could noy complain if people had talked. On these grounds the jury might have decided not' to award her so large a sum as they did on the strength of her statement that she had only been once in the car with Lopdeii. Tho case was therefore brought down to this simple point: Was Mrs. Sefton's statement true or untrue? That was the sole point the jury had to decide, and in doing so they must take tho evidenec hefore them—not the evidence for the Crown alone, but also that for the defence. Of course, if they ■ had any doubt, the prisoner was entitled to tho benefit of it, but the doubt must be a reasonable one. They could take it for granted that the witnesses , on hoth sides had been discussing tho ivhole matter among themselves. As_to • the evidence of Lopdell and a contractor , regarding the 'fixing of a certain date, > the jury must consider the degree of i oredibility to which it was entitled. The ' contractor remembered th» date because ! of the contract, but be had seen the 1 contract since, anil it had not been completed for some time afterwards. With regard to tho incident of February 2 he thought the jury would be entitled to I look at Swain's book. The material ; entry seemed a little inconsistent, and : whether the inconsistency had 'been over- > come by Swain's evidence in the box it ■ would he for the jury to decide. K • had been suggested that Miss KeigSbtky 1 was engaged to Basin's son, and that \ she had added to her evidence in the ' loewr court. In explanation she said ; she had not been asked a question that would have brought out the added fart, • and again it was for the jury to coneider whether they would accept this ex- ! planation. It must afeo-fcea remembered i with regard to 'the evidence for the de- ' fence that Lopdell to a large extent was an interested party, and so, of 1 coursfi, was Mrs. Sefton and Mr. Sefton. As to identity, Midhiret was a small place, in which identification would foe much easier than in a larger one. If ' a mistake in identity tad been made, i then six Crown witnesses liad made it. I In conclusion he said the whole <pies- ■ tion for the jury was whether or not Mrs. Sefton had spoken the truth, in; > her evidence. If they found heyoads '■ doubt that she had not, they would con- ■ vie* her, but if there was any reasonable ; doubt she must be acquitted.

THE SUMMING UP. His Honor, in summing up, said that in this case the Crown undertook toprove the accused guilty o£ the offence of wilful perjury, and iti was not enough to prove that she had 1 , made a fylse statement on oath. It hnd J also to be shown that Bhe wilfully and deliberately made the statement knowing it to be false. Some comment had* been made as to .certain al'legwttions not, being mentioned in the lower court, but;; that fact was not of much value now,; as the prisoner had gone into the boxj repeated her statement, and said that! it was what she had 'intended. There! was no ground for doubt, therefore,, that the prisoner deliberately stated tbali she had only been in the car with Lop-i dell once. It was not a question of memory, but solely a question as to whether or not the statement was false.. There had been eight witnesses for the' Crown, and each had sai'l that on sepa- | rate occasions they had seen Mrs. Seftoni and Lopdell in the car. These occafltons, I'probably numbered ten or twelve, 'but, lof course, there might have been some I overlapping. Now there ww titis peculiarity about the case that, with the exception of '.Baylor and Young, no two persons had spoken of the same event. 'Provisionally he had ruled on the point raised by. Mr. Johnstone that corroboration was not necessary, but in the event of a conviction the point would be considered. The real question was, Had there been one occasion only or more than one occasion? .Each of'the Crown witnesses had spoken of a separate and iudependent event. If several witnesses had given evidence as to one event, and given details, the case for the prosecution would have been very much stronger. The jury had! to rely on the memory and accuracy of the witnesses. Six witnesses were not likely to come there to make false statements, but counsel for the defence relied on the probability of their having been mistaken, and that their mistakes were due to the talk in the village, to the voice of scandal being heard in such a way as to induce people to Believe that if a woman was seen in the ear she must be the woman connected with the scandal. They all knew how often mistakes were made in identification; personally he could not say how many times he had been up jn Wellington and* Auckland bv persons he did not know and accosted with: "Glad to seo you, Mr. Xortheroft. How well you are looking!" The jury would all know I of the famous butcher case, in which '

many witnesses had identified a Wap,ping butcher as a missing baronet.■■. iii the present case the jury might come

to the conclusions that some of the v l nesscs had been Taisti*V«i, in view <,! the evidence given by tto defence, at/, .1 so, the question arose tltat if somi« had been mistaken, so also might the otfceis , .have been. ' After referring to details of the ert- )' donee, his Honor aaid that the jury! I mint bo absolutely centum before con- | victing the prisoner of hnr identity with | the woman seen in tl>. v cn iiitli Lopdcll; I 'if they were not the verdict must bo one for acquittal. Ho would not go any further iutp the evidence. The had. heai'd- it all, and 4 ma eiaia-

nrt<s? fffti n»htly for the Jury,end wS th ß 'p..:-H'« u ufl'ide .to the tneaaura «£ invViity to ** /-h Iho cvUenee was ea.itlfi Tic !«ft. U»e nmiter 'l,O them,' (oyjf xk'i' i':>s; out that if any 4.** tsibtni t!'i> r.r!?,<>r;cr wag cirSj&a te Ui* fail Oct.St of it.

TBI? vjswror. T*a ;. Tjf -«"tt.>rt, tw' 'twenty lava* mrinm vntit a vwxbct of not guilt) His to***- iiim-irtt jwa, £ea&i«tys|{:" ■ the mciuka J* vH-tfWosM-.- .' ■■ >