GIRL'S DEATH IN MILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 27, 31 January 1920, Page 19

GIRL'S DEATH IN MILL.

HANGING SENTENCE QUASHED. Ivy Wood, aged 13, and sentenced to death, had bis sentence reduced to 20 years' penal Criminal Appeal. The Lord Chief Justice saiil the tragedy took place at a mill at Hyde, Cheshire. The girl was sent by her father on an errand, iieard was employed as night watchman. The case against Beard was that he attacked the girl with a criminal intention. There was a violent struggle, in which she sought to free herself, and Beard, in the effort to keep her qniet. caught hold of her throat, placed his thumb on the larynx and suffocated her. 0 crime was committed when Beard was In a drunken condition and did not know what he was doing. The appeal was based on the ground that the judge should have told the Jury that if they thought the act which was the immediate cause of death was an accidental < i onsequence of Beard's attempting to stop the girl from making a noise, they Bhould return a verdict of manslaughter. 6timming-up and direction on the question of drunkenness were not in accordance with The Lord Chief Justice said the court decided that the judge was right in directresting upon drunkenness, they could return a verdict of murder. As to the question of drunkenness, the judge told the jury that they must find that the man did not kuow what he was doing, or that he did not know that he was doing wrong, before the defence of drunkenness could succeed, and he gave as an illustration the case of a man who, while cutting a woman's throat, thought he was cutting the throat of a pi)?. This, said the Lord Chief Justice, was a direction which was calculated to mislead the jury, and on this direction it was impossible for the jury to reduce the crime to manslaughter. Beard was entitled to have the law fully stated by the judge*