WIFE ASSAULTED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9477, 14 December 1918, Page 3

WIFE ASSAULTED.

HUSBAND CONVICTED.

(Per Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 13

At the Supreme Court to-day John Avondale Arnold was charged with having attempted to murder his wife, Elenor Freda Arnold, at Alfriston, on the night of October 6; also with having assaulted her with intent to cause bodily harm, and that he had caused actual bodily harm. The third count sot out that actual bodily harm was caused in such circumstances that ifdoath had ensued the prisoner would have been guilty of manslaughter.

The Hon. J.A. Tolo, K.C., stated that-after a social evening at his home Arnold remarked that he objected to private conversations between his wife and her father, who lived in the house, land on whose farm Arnold w,as employed.' A quarrel ensued, his wife saying she would leave him next day. With the words, "This will.be the end." the man sprang at his wife, caught lior by the throat, and choked hor into unconsciousness. On recover-' in£, the wife staggered into the bedroom, and the man, following her, again assaulted her. She again lost consciousness, but regained it, and opening a window screamed, " Murder !" The man pulled her back, pushed her into the sitting-room, and struck her on the head with something. The next she remembered was finding herself lying near a cot, with her hands bound, while her husband stood at the door with a lighted candle and kerosene tin in his hands. Twins four years old were in the cot, and the man attempted to set fire to tho bedclothes. His wife, who had released herself, endeavoured to frustrate him. The house was burned to the ground. Mrs Arnold denied, that she conversed with her father in German, or that her husband objected to his presence. John Henry Hansen, prisoner's father-in-law, emphatically denied that the prisoner ever quarrelled with him on the ground that witness's sympathies were anti-British. He declared that lie had been 40 years in New Zealand, and his sympathies were British. He had no relatives interned.

Counsel for accused said that un-cwest-ionablv accused 1 had committed a arave assault, but had no recollection whatever of the occurrence. The assault, evidently wnk committed in a state of frenzy, and Arnold had no deliberate intention of murdering his wife. '• • ,

The jury found accused guilty on the wrond .count of assault with intent.

Sentence was deferred till Monday