SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1922, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

ALLEGED INDECENT EXPOSURE. ACCUSED ACQUITTED. “This is a queer class of case, a class which, unfortunately, does come before the Court occasionally, and, to the normal man. it is difficult to see what pleasure the accused persons can get out of the acts alleged against them,” said Mr. C. H. Weston, ' (Crown Prosecutor) in opening the case against Charles Goodall at the Supreme Court at New Plymouth yesterday. Goodall was charged on two counts of indecent exposure at New Plymouth on November 15 and 17 with intent to insult two women. His Honor Mr. .Justice Chapman was on the bench, and Mr. P. O’Dea, with Mr. W. H. Freeman, appeared for the accused, who entered a plea of not guilty. The jury empanelled was as follows: Mesrs. J. Mynott (foreman;, J. Lowe, S L. Palmer, A. E. Page. C. R. Coleman, G. E. Furness, A. E. R. Gilbert, G. Peat, J. Hamilton, E. C. Horton, J. F. Carruthers, and FI. E. Bennett.

For the prosecution, it was stated that accused lived in a tent on a section adjacent to the houses occupied bv the two women complainants, and it was stated by one of them that Goodall made a practice of waiting until, she was out in her yard or at the washouse window, and then deliberately exposing himself to her. As she had had no witnesses to a number of the occurrences, she had not reported, the matter to the police, but had done so as soon as she and her neighbour had seen together the accused acting in an insulting manner. Botii witnesses were sure that accused Jiad Intended to insult them, and was not. merely using the small scrub on his section as a screen for a natural purpose. One witness, however, said that when accused saw that they had seen tier he stepped behind some bushes. 1 The Crown's case was supported by the women concerned and by Constable Sadler and Thomas Gore Sole, surveyor in the Lands and Survey Department, wno produced a plan of the locality. In cross-examination, it was elicited that accused’s fowls had annoyed one of the complainants, and had been in her garden, poison being laid and traps set as deterrents to further depredations-. For the defence, evidence was given by Alexander Shanks and Robert Francis Thompson, both of whom testified that they had known accnsed for some time, and had never heard him using and bad language or “smutty” talk, nor had they seen him committing any of the acts alleged against him. They considered Goodall a quiet, steady fellow, but they had heard that there was ill-feeling between one of the complainants and accused, and that poison and traps- had been set for his fowls. No complaint had been made to them by their own people, or the husbands of the complainants as to accused’s conduct. On November 29 they carried out a visibility test, Shanks standing where the complainant* had stood and Thompson where Goodall was alleged to have been. When Thompson moved his hand Shank.said that he could see it only faintly, although there was nothing intervening. When Thompson stepped aside a foot either way nothing could be seen. Mr. O’Dea drew the jury's attention to the bad feeling apparently existing over the fowls. He submitted that the accused was merely making use of the trees for a natural purpose, and, had his attention been drawn to the fact that he could be seen, he would have avoided annoying the women. His Honor said that it was a matter for the jury to decide. A man could not be convicted for carelessness-; the acts alleged against him must be wil-

nl. While deliberating on their verdict the jury expressed a desire to view the scene, and on their return brought in a verdict of not, guilty. Goodall was accordingly then discharged.