Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 78

Meikle's Appeal to the Police

Meikle's Appeal to the Police.

It may seem like gilding refined gold to carry the case any further, and yet there are two additional points, of which neither was before the jury which convicted Meikle, and both, are of such vital importance that it would be improper to omit them The first is, that a month before the police searched, and a fortnight before the date of the alleged crime, Meikle applied to the police for protection against the very trap into which he ultimately fell! The interview was thus described by Detective Ede, the leader of the search party, when under cross-examination by Meikle before the Justices in November, 1887:—

"I saw you at Invercargill on the 3rd or 4th of last month. We I had a conversation. You said you had been informed that sheep and sheepskins were to be put on your land by the Company. You told me that two men were to get £50 each, as soon as you were arrested." (C. 21.)

In the Supreme Court the evidence was ruled to be inadmissible and the questions put by Meikle's counsel to Detective Ede on the point were disallowed. Before the Commission, Detective Ede being dead, the statement was allowed to go in from the depositions; and its importance can hardly be exaggerated. In the first place, it proves that the most improbable part of the story in which all the members of the Meikle family were agreed—viz., that Lambert had talked freely of being offered for the placing of sheep and skins on Meikle's property in order 'to put him away"—was true, page 32 since it is not suggested that Meikle can have got the information which he passed on to the police from anybody Secondly, it shows that Meikle's confidence in Lambert was not so absolute as the latter represented. Thirdly, and a all, it proves that on receipt of the information Meikle acted exactly as any innocent man would have acted if warned than a plot was in preparation against him—he informed the police and asked them to protect him.