Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Tue 9 Aug 1921 1
NEWCASTLE POLICE COURT.
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Monday, August 8.
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(Before Mr W Le Brun Brown, SM.)
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REMANDED.
Austin Callan, 42, wharf labourer, was charged with having committed an improper offence [bestiality with a mare] at Newcastle on August 7. On the application of Constable Ward defendant was remanded until Wednesday. Bail was allowed in sureties of £35.
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Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Thu 11 Aug 1921 2
NEWCASTLE POLICE COURT.
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Wednesday, August 10.
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(Before Mr W Le Brun Brown, SM.)
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COMMITTED FOR TRIAL.
Austin Callen [aka Austin Callan] (42), wharf labourer, was committed for trial at the Newcastle Quarter Sessions on August 29 on a charge of committing an improper offence, at Newcastle, on August 6. Evidence of arrest was given be Constable S Crothers, and other evidence for the prosecution was given by Dr J Harris. Defendant elected to give evidence on his own behalf. Bail was allowed, in sureties of £80.
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Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Wed 31 Aug 1921 3
NEWCASTLE SESSIONS.
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The sittings of the Newcastle Quarter Sessions were continued before his Honor Judge Hamilton yesterday at the Newcastle Courthouse. Mr AF Dawson was the Crown Prosecutor.
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ACQUITTED.
Austin Callen was arraigned upon a charge of having committed an unnatural offence at Newcastle on August 7. After evidence, the jury returned after half an hour’s retirement, with a verdict of not guilty.
The court adjourned until 9.30 o’clock this morning.
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Truth, Sun 4 Sep 1921 4
CALLEN’S CASE.
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AN ALLEGATION ANSWERED.
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(From “Truth’s” Newcastle
Representative.)
“Not guilty” was the verdict returned by the jury in the last case tried at the Quarter Sessions at Newcastle on Tuesday last, and from the dock, a free man, stepped a stalwart middle-aged individual named Austin Callen, against whom had been preferred a charge of committing an unnatural offence.
The charge against the accused was based on the evidence of a young police constable named Crothers, and it was to the effect that just after midnight on August 17, while on duty in Darby-street, his attention was attracted by
HEARING A PECULIAR SOUND
on a vacant piece of land. Just then a motor car’s flashlight was thrown on the accused, who was in close proximity to a mare, and, so swore Crothers, the accused was committing an act of bestiality. Crothers rushed forward, and accused made to run off, but on the constable drawing a revolver accused stopped, and was charged with the offence. He emphatically denied it, and later, in the presence of Police-sergeant Asprey, said “it was a put-up job.”
It was on this evidence, supported by the production of a vest which accused had worn, and which had horse’s hair on it, that the jury were asked to convict; but the accused strongly and emphatically denied the charge, and declared that he was sleeping off the effects of drink, and that the hair on the vest must have got on it while lying down. Further, he swore that just before the constable arrested him and presented his revolver, he heard a woman scream and say, “There’s a man”, a suggestion which the constable scouted.
However, it was admitted that accused had three bottles of beer on him when arrested, two in his coat pockets and the third stuck up between his vest and his shirt.
Lawyer Braye, for the defence, put it to the jury that it might have been as the accused said
“A PUT-UP JOB”,
and wanted to know why other portions of accused’s wearing apparel had not been produced.
The jury, after hearing all the addresses on the matter, returned a verdict of not guilty, and the accused was discharged.
An extraordinary amount of interest was manifested in the case, principally by wharf workers. Callen being a well-known wharf identity.
1 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Tue 9 Aug 1921, p. 7.
2 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Thu 11 Aug 1921, p. 7. Emphasis added.
3 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Wed 31 Aug 1921, p. 6.
4 Truth, (Syd, NSW), Sun 4 Sep 1921, p. 9. Emphasis added.