GELIGNITE IN SHRUBS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 19, 2 November 1938, Page 6

GELIGNITE IN SHRUBS.

UNUSUAL CASE AT WANGANUI. (Per Press Association.) WANGANUI, Nov. 1. On the night of July 25 last, residents of Wanganui were startled by the sound of ail explosion. It was later discovered by the police that it had occurred; in Wanganui East, at the Esplanade, near the old rustic bridge over Nixon Creek. That discovery led to a married man, Charles Neil Neilson, aged 62, appearing in the Supreme Court at Wanganui to-day, charged that, with intent to maim, disfigure, or do grievous bodily harm to his wife, Elizabeth Annie Neilson, he laid gelignite amongst bamboo shrubs. He was further charged with the intention ot doing bodily harm to his wife by the same act, and, third, with, setting a man-trap with intent that it might inflict grievous bodily harm upon any person that came in contact with it. After retiring for three-quarters of an hour, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. Prisoner was remanded for sentence.

Mr Justice Quilliam presided, and the Crown’s case was presented by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr N. R. Bain. Accused conducted his own defence, cross-examining witnesses and addressing the jury from the box. He again denied a statemenet made to the. police at the Wanganui Public Hospital on July 28. His version of the explosion was that he had been experimenting, had not set a trap for anybody, and that the gelignite went off accidentally, and that ho himself was injured.