Wives of transported convicts (General)

by Chrisy, Sunday, December 28, 2008, 23:58 (5818 days ago) @ Dewey

I don't know about "treated as dead" simply because he was a convict but at soldier William Yeme's trial for theft/desertion in 1828 the Australian High Court rejected his argument that because the witnesses against him were convicts (and therefore had no legal standing)they could not give evidence against him, on the basis that to allow such an argument would preclude half the population of Australia from giving evidence in Court..!!! He was duly hanged but the case does show that Australian courts took a different view to the English ones on the subject.