VERDICT OF GUILTY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 206, 31 July 1937, Page 11

VERDICT OF GUILTY

BLOWING UP OF HOUSE. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, July 30. On his third trial on a charge of blowing up a house .at Stillwater, Maurice Moore was found guilty by a juryin the Supreme Court at Christchurch to-day. A recommendation for mercy was made. Moore, who is a bricklayer, of Stillwater, bad been tried twice on the West Coast, but each time the jury failed to agree. The charge was that, on March 5, 1937, near the Arnold River bridge, on the Greymouth-Reefton road, at Stillwater, Moore wilfully damaged a dwellinghouse owned by Janies Peon Brosnan, to the extent of £SOO, thereby' committing mischief. Mr A. W. Brown, for the Crown, said the evidence would show that Moore purchased explosives, took them to the house, placed them in va.rious parts of the building and blew it to pieces. After the evidence had been heard. Mr C. S. Thomas, for accused, said the Crown’s case rested on accused’s threats and his purchase of gelignite. The only definite threat to do anything to the house was made in 1928, and it would be absurd to convict him for it eight years later. Mr Justice Northcroft, summing up, said it was true there was no evidence that Moore had actually been seen committing tho crime alleged, hut if no one was to be convicted unless seen committing an offence, then an enormous amount of crime would go undetected. /In this case the Crown depended on-what was known as circumstantial evidence. There were many cases in which circumstantial _ evidence was stronger than evidence coming from an eye-witness. A good deal had been made —irrelevantly, he was afraid —of the earlier history of Moore’s association’s with the house. If that earlier history awoke any sympathy for the accused, then the jury should dismiss that sympathy. His Honour reviewed the evidence for the Crown under four heads —evidence of motive, opportunity, accused’s threats, and his attitude as being consistent with guilt. Someone undoubtedly had committed this crime deliberately, and only someone with a very strong motive would have done it. because whoever it was, he was running a very great risk. The Crown submitted that the only man with that motive was Moore. The jury returned at 5.50 p.m. with a verdict of guilty and a recommendation for mercy.

Prisoner was remanded for son tcnce.