Trial and Acquittal
Several problems prevented Carson from taking the case straight to court. Firstly as Archer-Shee was a military cadet at the time, this excluded him from the jurisdiction of a civil court. Secondly as he was not enlisted in the Royal Navy, nor was he entitled to a court-martial. In order to help his client, Carson used an archaic legal device called a petition of right against the Crown to bring the matter before the courts.
The case eventually came to the High Court of Justice on 26 July 1910. Carson's opening remarks set the tone of the case:
- A boy 13 years old has been labelled and ticketed for all his future life as a thief and a forger. Gentlemen, I protest against the injustice to a child, without communication with his parents, without his case ever being put, or an opportunity of its ever being put forward by those on his behalf. That little boy from the day that he was first charged, up to this moment, whether in the ordeal of being called in before his Commander and his Captain, or whether under the softer influences of the persuasion of his own loving parents, has never faltered in the statement that he is innocent.
Carson soon proved that the grounds on which the Admiralty had dismissed Archer-Shee were unsubstantiated. The barrister successfully proved that the elderly postmistress, Miss Tucker, could easily have been mistaken. She admitted in court that all of the cadets looked alike. Conceding that in the course of dealing with one cadet and her various other tasks and duties, another boy could have entered without her noticing. The court also heard Miss Tucker was unable to identify Archer-Shee among the other cadets when given the opportunity to do so.
On the fourth day of the trial, the Solicitor-General, Sir Rufus Isaacs, accepted the statement that George Archer-Shee did not cash the postal order "and consequently that he is innocent of the charge. I say further, in order that there may be no misapprehension about it, that I make that statement without any reserve of any description, intending that it shall be a complete justification of the statement of the boy and the evidence he has given before the court."
Read more about this topic: George Archer-Shee
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