BARKER V. THE QUEEN

©4975 /58

W. M. Houston, Govt, Priat., Meth.

ORIGINAL

REASONS. FOR JUDGMENT

Judgment delivered at... S¥IM@Y on..Tuesday,...6th.April..1957..———

BARKER

THE QUEEN

ORDER

Appeal dismissed.

BARKER

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THE QUEEN

DIXON C.Jdo

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SUDGMENT McTIERNAN J. "PAYLOR J.

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This is an appeal by leave from a conviction upon indictment before the Supreme Court of Papua and New Guinea. The appellant was tried and convicted by the Chief Justice (Sir Beaumont Phillips) without a jury upon a charge under sec. 210 of the Criminal Code of Queensland which is adopted as part of the law of the Territory. Sec. 210 provides that any person who unlawfully and indecently deals with a boy under the age of fourteen years is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for seven years. The section defines the term "deal with" as including doing any act which, if done without consent, would constitute an assault as defined in the Code.

The charge was that-the appellant on or about 11th June 1956 unlawfully and indecently dealt with Reginald John Gilbert,a boy under the age of fourteen years. It appears that at that date the appellant had spent three weeks at Lae during which he had from time to time gone to a swimming pool where he had become known to some boys who also went there. At the pool there are dressing sheds which include cubicles containing shower recesseSe The recegSses are not large, about four feet six inches by five feet six inches. To each there is a door, which while not reaching to the ground is about six feet high. The appellant and some of the boys, including Gilbert, were in one of the eubicles together naked after swimming and playing in the pool. He had some soap with him which he used upon the boys or some of them; according to his testimony only upon their shoulders and back. The case made against him was that he indecently "handled the private part of Gilbert and of certain other boys, one after another. Gilbert was not quite nine years of age.