- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
behaviour. He allowed the jurors to remove their coats, counsel to divest themselves of wigs and gowns, and
followed suit himself, after which the trial for murder of an Aborigine, Dick Poora Koonie, commenced.
A few days later, the Northern Standard reported that Dick Koora Poonie had been sentenced to death and that
Constable Gordon Stott had been suspended for his alleged ill treatment of an Aborigine at Borroloola.
Stott appeared before Wells in early November 1933 on a charge of assaulting Tommy Dodd in February.
Wells discharged Stott since he did not believe the story told by the Aboriginal prosecution witnesses. During
the first day of Stott’s trial Wells was angered by a statement of legal counsel H J Foster who said he was present
‘to see that justice was done’. The next day Wells barred Foster from taking part in the proceedings but allowed
him to remain in the court as a spectator when it was revealed that the Aboriginal Protection Society of Sydney,
administered by the Reverend W Morley, had briefed Foster to appear on behalf of Aboriginal witnesses. Wells saw
this incident as an affront to the court made worse by his own misapprehension that Dr Cecil Cook, the Chief
Protector of Aboriginals, had instructed Foster. Wells regarded the Association’s action as an attempt to influence
the course of the trial and said it was ‘meddlesome, mischievous and impertinent... unprecedented in the history
of our Courts’. Moreover, Wells considered Foster’s briefing as damaging to the Crown since public opinion in
Darwin saw Stott’s prosecution as instigated by the Association, as Stott’s counsel had asserted. At the end of the
trial Wells remarked to Stott that the way was open to him to obtain heavy damages if the Association’s part in
the prosecution could be proved. Wells’s comments provoked protests from the missionary organisations and the
Aboriginal Protection Society but the government seemed content to find no fault with his conduct. The Attorney
General’s Department, after considering the facts, advised the Department of the Interior that ‘there is nothing
which... provides any justification for approaching the Judge in the manner requested by the Association.’
Stott again appeared before Wells in April 1934 on a charge of assaulting an Aboriginal woman, Dolly, who
had died in February at Borroloola. Again Wells discharged Stott saying that many of the witnesses were liars and
that David Cahill’s connection with the case (Cahill was mentioned in the earlier Stott prosecution) was suspicious
since he had corresponded with people ‘down south’ who boasted in the press they were responsible for Stott’s
prosecution. After discharging the defendant, Wells said, ‘Stott, you have my sympathy.’ Following yet another
outcry from the reformers ‘down south’ Wells castigated the Association for the Protection of Native Races (also
under the administration of Morley) as a ‘lot of interfering busybodies’.
But in another case Wells observed that the evidence of Aborigines was the same in law as that of whites and
in an amending ordinance to the Northern Territory’s criminal code Wells provided for the courts to take notice of
‘relevant native laws and customs in dealing with Aboriginal cases’. But Wells’s prejudice got the better of him
when he characterised marriages between white men and part Aboriginal women as ‘anthropological marriages’.
On 30 July 1934 Wells sentenced three Aborigines each to 20 years imprisonment for the murder of a Japanese
trepanger alleged to have molested Aboriginal women. However, Wells recommended that the convicted Aborigines
be released after three or four years into the care of the Department of Native Affairs in their own country at
Caledon Bay. Wells said he did not believe the Japanese had abducted the Aboriginal women and the evidence for
this had been fabricated.
In August 1934 Wells sentenced Tuckiar to death for the murder of Constable A S McColl while the
co-defendant Meerara was acquitted. The judge explained his reason for the death penalty, asserting that it should
be made clear to Aborigines that they could not kill policemen and expect to only spend a few years in prison,
which Wells regarded as no punishment at all for ‘wild’ Aborigines. The Reverend Dyer had suggested that
Meerara should be flogged for his part in the crime and this form of punishment in place of prison preoccupied
Wells from this time.
Earlier both Tuckiar and Meerara had been found not guilty of the murder of a man at Woodah Island in 1933
when Wells ruled their confessions inadmissible and lashed out in a statement from the bench saying, ‘The Crown,
the Government or the Administration here have failed lamentably in their duty; the way the case has been presented
is astounding.’ This outburst was provoked because the despatch of a police officer to gather evidence had been
cancelled on instruction from Canberra. Wells said he had not pressed the prosecution to make a public admission
of this fact when the jury had questioned the lack of evidence to convict the defendants. The government in
Canberra issued a press statement describing Wells’s remarks as most embarrassing. Wells responded by informing
the Prime Minister, J A Lyons, that the statement should be withdrawn at once otherwise he would give the press
the facts concerning the suppression of evidence. Here Wells was protesting at what he saw as the unconstitutional
intervention of the executive government into the judicial process.
Contrary to the usual practice of the time, Tuckiar’s case went on appeal to the full High Court in Melbourne
and during the hearing Mr Justice Starke announced that Wells had sent a confidential report to the court. Starke
held that Wells’s charge to the jury denied Tuckiar the substance of a fair trial and drew attention to the defendant’s
ignorance of the nature of the proceedings or of their consequences to him and to the inadequacy of the interpreter
who was also a witness. Tuckiar was found not guilty on the basis of Wells’s misdirection of the jury when he
said the defendant’s failure to give evidence gave rise to the presumption of guilt contrary to Section One of Act
Number 245 of South Australia that applied to the Northern Territory. Moreover, it was wrong that evidence
relating to McColl’s good character was not disallowed by Wells since the ‘purpose of the trial was not to vindicate
the deceased constable but to inquire into the guilt of the living aboriginal.’ Tuckiar was released in Darwin to find
his own way back to his own country but he was never seen again. The Reverend J H Sexton of the Aborigines’
Friends Association of South Australia criticised the police in Darwin for their failure to ensure Tuckiar’s safe
return.