TWO MURDER APPEALS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 155, 30 June 1917, Page 15

TWO MURDER APPEALS.

"CI'II.TY AND SATISFIED WITH MY SENTENCE." A convicted murderer's alleged confession and his own denial of all knowledge of it provided a dramatic hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal. A futile application was made on behalf of William James Robinson, who was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of Alfred Williams, a private in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and sentenced to death A copy of a letter written from prison to Miss Margaret Harding, who said she burnt the original, was read. In the letter prisoner said: "I tell you now I am guilty, and am quite satisfied with my sentence. ... 1 am sorry for the poor soldier killed. It was not done for robbery, but simply, unfortunately. I took him for somebody else I had a row with the previous day." The prisoner then went into the witness box. and said he had not the slightest recollection of writing the letter. 'I'he Lord Chief Justice said no fault could he found with the direction of the judge at the trial. The appeal could not succeed. Leave to appeal was refused, aud the application dismissed. Another appeal was heard on behalf of Robert Gadsby. who was sentenced to death at the Leeds Assizes for the murder of Julia Johnson, by cutting her throat with a penknife. Counsel said that what was done was done accidentally, and contended that the conviction should either be quashed or revised, and the sentence reduced to one in respect of manslaughter. The Lord Chief Justice said It was difficult tn understand how such a wound could be accidental, particularly when it was done with a penknife. The wound was seven incnes long. Before giwng himself up for the murder the prisoner said "Good-bye for ever" to his daughter nnd son-in-law, and gave his watch and purse to the children. At the police station he said he had murdered his "sweetheart." but at t>» trial he set up a defence different to the statement he made originally to the police, and the jury came to the conclusion that the prisoner's first story was true. The Court held that there was proper direction of the jury "by the learned judge, and saw no reason to interfere.