EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1839, 12 January 1889, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

> Dunedin, Jan. 10. Joseph Valentine, a young man, a ploughman by occupation, w,as charged at the Supreme Court to-day with, on Oct, 28, murdering his illegitimate child near Balclutha. Sir Robert Stout defended the accused. The Crown Prosecutor, in opening, said the prisoner had a strong motive for desiring to get rid of (he child, as its maintenance was a burden on him. The evidence would show that when the eight days old, he called at the house where the mother, Jane Porter, resided, between eight and nine o’clock at night, and took the child away on horseback, after a slight remonstrance, saying ho would carry it to his sister, four or five miles off, with whom he had arranged to keep it. It would be proved that no such agreement bad been made, but the prisoner, instead of going to his sister’s, went in the direction of the river, having —he afterwards said—made up his mind to go to a Mr Sloper, thirteen miles off, and ask him for some money due. When he reached the banka of the Clutba, prisoner said ha got off and led bis horse, that he stumbled, the horse jumped back, and the child accidentally fell into the river; that ho waded in and recovered what he thought to be the child, but it proved to be only a shawl. The prisoner did not return or go to Sloper’s, but travelled all night to his father’s, thirty-six miles off. Here he was, or pretended to be, in great grief and a dazed condition, and only , some days after gave an account of thp* occurrence. The police, after investigation, concluded that the child’s death could not have been accidental, and sweated the accused.

Sir Robert Stout rnsed the point that there was no case to go to the jury, on the ground that the death o£ the child had not been proved, and that, if the prisoners account—which was the only evidence of death—was accepted as true, the cccuirence was accidental. The Judge said he would reserve the point if necessary, and the case went to the jury. The evidence of the mother of the child went to show that ho took rhe child from her quite unexpectedly, and Mrs Hackle, prisoner’s sister, one of the witnesses, deposed that he had made no arrangement with her to keep the child, though he lioefliiofaed to her that he was charged witlflbeiug its father. , , Sir B. Stout, in his address for the defence, admitted that the prisoner acted in a very stupid manner, but the evidence showed that he was a particularly stupid many and had been, subject to fits, Hg elaborated the point as to there being no evidence of death. His Honor said as no_ body bad been recovered, it was a case in which the Jury must proceed with caution. In the first place, the Crown should prove that the prisoner s story not only might be, but must from the necessity of the case, be untrue. If they failed in that the prisoner was entitled to be acquitted ; but if,they succeeded it was then for the Jury to take the fact of the untrue story in conjunction with the other circumstances of the case, ind all the acts of the accused, and consider whether they were sufficient to prove jeyond all reasonable doubt that he must lave intentionally killed the child. The Jury, after an hour and a halt’s etirament, returned a verdict of “Not suilty.”