HYDE PARK TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

HYDE PARK TRAGEDY.

JURY DISAGREE IN MURDER TRIAL

EPILEPSY VICTIMS AND VIOLENCE

A n Old Bailey jury disagreed in the case of Robert Williams, 28, a carpenter, indicted for the murder of Julia Mangan, a young Irish girl, who was found beside him in Hyde Park with her throat cut. The jury were discharged, and the case was postponed to the neit Sessions for retrial. When the jury had considered their verdict for an hour and twenty minutes they returned to court, the foreman stating that they had not agreed on the question of sanity. Mr. Justice Swift redirected them on the point, and they again retired. After an absence of another twenty minutes it was announced that they were still unable to Mr. H. D. Roome appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Peregrine for thje defence. Mr. Roome stated that Williams, who lodged in Robert Street, Hampstead, had been out of work. Mangan, who was 21, had been employed as a housemaidwaitress in Stanhope Gardens, West. On the night of the tragedy the girl left for her "evening out." Two hours later Williams was found by a policeman near the fountain gate. Hyde Park, face downwards, with a wound iu his throat and a razor beside him. Nearby was the body of Julia Mangan with her throat cut. The two were taken to the hospital. The girl was found to be dead. An operation was performed on the man, and he was able to leave the hospital after twelve days. It was stated during the evidence for the prisoner that the house surgeon at St. George's Hospital was too unwell to attend, and Mr. Roome asked leave to read his evidence. Mr. Peregrine said he would suggest that the doctor's depositions should not be read, as he could not cross-examine the doctor, and to that course the judge assented. » Detective May, asked by Mr. Peregrine about insanity in the family of the accused, said that a cousin and the son of a cousin had both committed suicide, and two cousins of his mother had been in an asylum in North Wales. Williams, in the witness box, said he was born in North Wales, where he spent his childhood. He came to London to work as a carpenter. He met Miss Mangan in Hyde Park about a month before her death, and from that time he saw her twice or three times a week . -'When I left my job," he continued, "I seemed to forget all I had learned about my carpentry and could not do my work. I decided to commit suicide, and I put my razor in my pocket. As I was going out something seemed to tell me to stop, and I went and lay down on my bed and went to sleep."

Mr. Peregrine: Waa that the first time you had made up your mind to commit suicide? —No; in 1914 I threw myself against the hind leg of a horse. Williams said that he and Miss Mangan were friends. He wanted to marry her, and had told her so. She always treated him kindly. Describing the tragedy, he said that about ten o'clock at night he and the girl were Bitting in the park talking, There was no quarrel. "The last thing I remember," he continued, "was Julia whistling. Then I felt a? if my head were going to burst, and that steam was coming out of both sides. All sorts of things came to my mind. I thought a man had me in a corner and was pulling faces at me. He threatened and shouted at me that he had me where he wanted me." Mr. Peregrine: Do you remember whose face it was?— Yes, sir. Williams added that the next thing he knew was finding himself in hospital. Mr. Peregrine: Did you feel any pain while you were in the park?— Yea, a atinging. He did not remember using the razor on anyone, and had no intention on that night of injuring Miss Mangan. Cross-examined hv Mr. Rooms, Williams admitted that until the night of the tragedy he had walked out with the girl as Walter Ellis. In the park ha told her his real name. John Pearce Thomas, a deacon of the chapel in Carnarvonshire attended by the prisoner's family, said he knew of five instances of insanity on the mother's side. Dr. Gordon Hume, of Fitzroy Square, who had attended the prisoner for neurasthenia, said that in October he considered Williams abnormal, but he would not have certified him insane. Dr. James Cowan Woods, a lecturer on mental diseases at St. George's and London Hospitals, said that he examined Williams in Brixton Prison. Williams was then sane, but he had formed the conclusion that at the time of the tragedy Williams had had an epileptic mental attack. Epileptie Automatism.

Replying to Mr. Peregrine, Dr. Woods said that epilepsy was not confined to persons of low mentality. He knew people of high intelligence who suffered from epilepsy and were able to do their work quite well. In epileptic automatism a person would be completely unaware of his conduct. One analogy to it was the dream state or nightmare. Mr. Justice Swift: You have said that many people of high intelligence are going about their work although they are suffering from epilepsy. Are you suggesting that they might commit murder tomorrow ? Dr. Woods: I do not say that, bul many people are subject to periods of automatism in which they are completelyirresponsible. There are many thousands of persons suffering from delusional insanity who are doing their work well. It would not be wise to put them in an institution and deprive them of their liberty unless they showed a tendency to commit some homicidal or dangerous act. The Judge: Are all these people liable to cut somebody's throat? Dr. Woods: I know many who might become dangerous, and I think every physician in a mental practice does also. Mr. Peregrine: Do you know of cases of "petit mal" where people are detained ixi institutions who have never committed an offence?— Yes, I should think there are many hundreds in London alone. Dr. Woods added that persistence of epilepsy was often associated with mental progressive deterioration, and patients had eventually to go to an institution. The most dramatic forgetfulness that occurred in life was epileptic forgetfulness. The Judge: Can you suggest why this particular man should kill this particular girl while in this state? Dr. Woods: In a daugerous frame of mind he might attack someone dear to him.

Dr. Watson, senior medical officer at Brixton Prison, said he had seen no signs of insanity in Williams. He could Bee nothing to indicate that Williams was suffering from any form of epilepsy. He saw nothing to show that Williams did not know the nature and the quality of his act but owing to the interval that had elapsed before he saw Williams he would not like to give any definite opinions.