NBC – 1853.08.13 – Circuit Court – Orange Riot Results – #268 – F122

Circuit Court – The Court was engaged on Monday afternoon, and all day on Tuesday, with the trial of William Reed, John Starkie, George Clingham, and James Akerley – the young men charged with an assault on William McAvoy, Owen Culliman, and Mary Ann Creary, near the Suspension Bridge, on the 12th July last. The evidence for the prosecution was nearly the same as that adduced against them on the examination at the Police Office; but from the statements of two of the witnesses for the defence – one of them a younger brother to the prisoner Starkie, and who was in the waggon with him, and made the fifth person alleged to have been engaged in the assault, and the other a young man named Rathburn, who witnessed the occurrence from the opposite side of the river – it appeared doubtful which of the parties gave the first offence. The Jury, after a short consultation without leaving the box, returned a verdict of Not Guilty. The trial of Reed and the other young men, for stabbing Dennis McAvoy, has been ordered to stand over until the other business before the Court is got through with, when it will take place, if McAvoy is able to attend; in the meantime the parties have been liberated on their own [recognizances].

On Wednesday, the man Riordan, charged with causing the death of his wife, was put upon his trial for murder. It appeared that she was in the habit of getting drunk and that they occasionally [quarrelled], when he would beat her; but the evidence not being sufficiently conclusive that the woman’s death was caused by the drinking or by the violent usage of her husband, the Jury, after a short absence, returned a verdict of Not Guilty.