QUITE HAPPY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 175, 25 July 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

QUITE HAPPY.

"INSANE" MURDERER,

RONALD TRUE AT BROADMOOR

MELBOURNE MAN'S CASE.

Ronald True, who murdered Gertrude Yates in her Kensington flat in 1922 and lias spent 14 years in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, was mentioned during another murderer's petition befoi e the Privy Council Judicial Committee in London. Mr. D. N. Pritt. K.C., supporting the defence that the petitioner was insane, said the judge's direction to the jury was misleading in that it was likely to lead them to suppose that delusional insanity was the only kind of insanitv which afforded a defence to a criminal charge.

I If it could be shown that the reason ian accused person could not control himself was that his want of control I was attributable to some diseased con- | dition of his mind then he must be j found insane. "I Have Seen Him." Referring to Ronald True Mr. Pritt said: "I myself have seen True walking about Broadmoor and looking quite happy and comfortable, as so many people in Broadmoor do." The case before the committee was that of Arnold Karl Sodcman, a British subject living in the State of Victoria, Australia, . who "was sentenced to be hanged after being found guilty of murdering a six-year-old girl, _ June Rushiner. His appeal was dismissed. Sodernan's defence was that he was insane at the time. He took the girl for a ride on a bicycle and strangled | her by tying up her body in a curious i way, stuffing a portion of her clothing into her mouth.. He left her for dead. He had committed three previous murders in a , similar way. At his trial for the murder of the girl Ruslimer two prison doctors and a specialist in mental diseases gave evidence in support of his defence of insanity. His Submission. After the reference to Ronald True I Lord Macmillan (sitting with the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Hailsham and Sir Isaac Isaacs) asked Mr. Pritt if his subnflssion was: "I knew what I was! doing; I knew it was wrong; I could j not help it." | Mr. Pritt: Yes. Mr. G. B. McClure replied briefly for the Crown. The Lord Chancellor gave judgment dismissing the petition. He said it had been suggested by Mr. Pritt that where a man knew that what he was doing was wrong, none the less he might be insane if he was caused to do it by an irresistible impulse produced by disease.

Mr. Pritt had said that this would be a good opportunity for establishing the law beyond doubt.

The judges did not think so. because, if they took a different view of the law from that laid down in certain authorities the effect might be that there would be different standards of law prevailing in England and the Dominions.