FRAUD CHARGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 February 1940, Page 6

FRAUD CHARGES

DEFENCE RESERVED — BOTH MEN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. STATEMENTS BY COUNSEL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. After a hearing which lasted four days in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, the case in which two men were charged with conspiritng to defraud Hartley Roy Sellars, deceased, of sums totalling about £6765 Is 9d. was concluded yesterday. The accused. Harvey Maitland Chrystall. engineer. aged 52, Nelson, and Gordon Percy Aston. 42 Webb Street, Christchurch, pleaded not guilty and were committed by Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., to the Supreme Court for trial. Their defence was reserved. Bail was allowed in the sum of £lOOO. with one surety for £lOOO, or two sureties of £5OO. When the hearing of the police evidence had concluded, Mr W. E. Leicester intimated that the accused Chrystall had nothing further to say to the Court at the present stage. Counsel suggested that the Court might formally overrule any objections he had made as to the admissibility of evidence. his reasons being (1) that the evidence had been published and so far as Chrystall was concerned counsel had no complaint regarding the manner in which the evidence had been published or the fairness of the prosecution; (2) that it seemed unprofitable to embark on a discussion of the evidence for the purpose of pressing the objection. Therefore it did not follow that if the objections were allowed at the present, stage the trial judge would necessarily take the same view or that there would be any substantial gain in pressing the objections. So far as Chrystall was concerned no harm had been done to him by publication of the evidence.

Mr C .E. Purchase, counsel for Aston. said he wished to associate himself with Mr Leicester’s remarks and so far as Aston was concerned was content to leave the matter in the hands of the Court. The only matters to which he felt he had a substantial objection, said counsel, were those referring to the gold-making episode in 1928 and to Aston's habit of tearing up bank notes. The first reference was to something said to have taken place many years before anything that could have possibly affected the present case. As to the second objection, it had not been shown that the habit was outside Aston’s normal personal habits for a period of years. It might be foolish, but it had no relation to the present charge. The magistrate, in ruling that there was a prima facie case against the two accused, said it was not neccessary for him to go into the question of the objection to evidence, and he would formally overrule all objections and commit the accused for trial at the Supreme Court.