Conviction On Finger-Prints Alone

Appeal In Ocean Island Murder Is Discussed

IN dismissing the appeal of Tai Shek against the sentence of death imposed upon him for murder on Ocean Island in April last, the Fiji Court of Appeal gave an official summary of the case, and Its background, which is valuable.

Two Europeans were murdered, one night. The only evidence against the man convicted of the crime was a series of clear finger-prints. No motive for the murder ever has been disclosed.

The Appeal Court comprised the Chief Justice (Mr. J. H. Vaughan), the Puisne Judge (Mr. A. G, Carew) and the British Judge in the New Hebrides (Brigadier H.

J. M. Flaxman).

Counsel for the appellant (Mr.

H. Maurice Scott) contended, inter alia, that on the whole of the evidence there was a reasonable doubt as to whether the accused was guilty of the crime with which he was charged, that the Acting Puisne Judge (Mr. R. D. G. Higginson) had failed to give the accused the benefit of that doubt, and that there was insuffi cient evidence on which to convict of murder.

Leave to appeal to the Privy Council is now being sought.

PART of the Appeal Court judgment reads: — “In view of the nature of the ques tions raised on the appeal it is necessary briefly to set out such of the facts as are clearly established by the evidence.

“The scene of the crime was Ocean Island, which has an area of some 21 square miles and is in the hands of the British Phosphate Commissioners. The population consists of Government offi cials and the employees of the Phosphate

Commissioners, and is made up of some one hundred Europeans, 400 or more Gil bertese natives and 800 Chinese labourers.

“On the morning of April 27, 1949, the body of Mr. T. Allen, an engineer in the employment of the Commissioners, was found lying in the bedroom of his bunga low on Ocean Island. That of his wife was in the lounge, which adjoins and opens out into the bedroom. Her body was lying close to a table upon which was a telephone. Both were in their night clothes. They had been stabbed to death.

“The bedroom light was on and the telephone receiver cord had been cut. The doors and windows were open, this being in accordance with custom on Ocean Island where the climate is tropical. A knife with which the wounds could have been inflicted was found sticking in the ground sixty yards from the bungalow.

“According to the medical evidence, death had occurred between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. There were blood-stained foot marks in the bedroom and lounge.

“A police guard was placed on the house and remained there until the in vestigations were completed.

“Special investigating officers arrived at the Island on May 8, and on May 9 they found on the wooden framework of one of the bedroom windows, which opened out on to the verandah, the impressions of a thumb and a left and right palm of a human hand. The position of these im pressions showed that the person who made them entered the bedroom of the Allen’s bungalow through this window, close to which the beds occupied by the Allens, and through which the mosquito net which hung down over both beds could be clearly seen from the outside.

“Having photographed these impres

sions, the investigating officers proceeded methodically to take the thumb and palm prints of the inhabitants of OCean Island.

“This procedure led to the arrest on May 21 of the appellant, a Chinese labourer, also employed by the Phosphate Commission, and he was in due course tried and convicted by the Supreme Court of Fiji of the murder of Mr. Allen. The trial was before a Judge sitting with five European assessors, of whom two re

corded their opinion that the accused was not guilty.”

After discussing certain legal points, the judgment proceeds:— “The evidence of the identity of the finger-prints was extremely strong, and no one who has examined those prints with care, as we have, could be in any doubt at all that the finger-print expert’s evidence must be accepted.

“It is a proper inference to be drawn

from the evidence that the impressions were left there whilst the accused man was climbing through the window: that window was close to the head of the beds in which the murdered man and his wife slept and which were visible from the outside. It is also a proper inference to be drawn from the evidence that the accused had no right or occasion to be in that house, apart from the fact that he himself denies that he was ever there.”