The Argus at KellyGang 12/11/1880

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(full text transcription)

THE TRIAL OF EDWARD KELLY

An application was made to Mr Justice Barry in chambers on Saturday by Mr C A Smyth, Crown prosecutor, for an order to transfer the trial of Edward Kelly from the Beechworth Circuit Court to the Central Criminal Court.  The application was made under section 33 of the Judicature Act.  No 502, which provides that wherever any person shall have been committed for any felony or misdemeanour committed or supposed to have been committed, at any place out of the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, and it shall appear to the Supreme Court in term time or to any judge thereof in vacation that it shall be expedient to the ends of justice that such person should be tried for such offence at the Central Criminal Court, it shall be lawful for the Court or judge to order that such person shall be tried for such offences at the Central Criminal Court, and the trial shall be held there accordingly.

Mr Smyth, having referred to the section of the act, said that an affidavit was made by Mr Gurner, the Crown solicitor, in support of the application, which showed that it was advisable that the trial should be held in the Central Criminal Court and not at Beechworth.  He read the affidavit, which was as follows:-

”That the above named Edward Kelly was, at a court of petty sessions holden at Beechworth on the 10th and 11th days of August, 1880, committed for trial to Assize Court to be holden at Beechworth, in the northern bailiwick, on the 14th October next, upon the respective charges of the murder of Constable Thomas Lonigan and Constable Michael Scanlan.

“2.  That the said offences for which the said Edward Kelly was so committed for trial were perpetrated at Stringy-bark Creek, Wombat Ranges, in the said northern bailiwick, on the 26th October, 1878.

“3.  That on the 4th day of November, 1878, the said Edward Kelly, charged with the said offences, was by an order under the provisions of the Felons Apprehension Act 1878 no. 612, made by his honour Sir Wm Foster Stawell, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the colony of Victoria, adjudged and declared to be an outlaw by a declaration to that effect under the hand of the said Sir W F Stawell, Chief Justice, and filed of record in the aforesaid Supreme Court.

“4.  That on the said 4th November, 1878, Daniel Kelly (a brother of the said Edward Kelly), Joseph Byrne, and Stephen Hart were also by an order of the said Sir William Foster Stawell, made under the provisions of the said statute, adjudged and declared outlaws for the same offences as the said Edward Kelly.

“5.  That since the aforesaid declarations of outlawry I am informed and believe the said Edward Kelly was at large until the 28th day of June, 1880, when he was apprehended at Glenrowan, in the said northern bailiwick.

“6.  That I am informed, and verily believe, that since the said outlawry, and up to the arrest of the said Edward Kelly, the said Edward Kelly, Daniel Kelly, Joseph Byrne, and Stephen Hart formed an organised gang of armed highway robbers, under the leadership of the said Edward Kelly, and during the said period were the cause of much terror to the law-abiding and peaceable inhabitants of the said northern bailiwick. '

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