TO BE TRIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 306, 28 December 1939, Page 5

TO BE TRIED.

PATRICIDE CHARGE.

BOY OF 16 COMMITTED.

SHOT FATHER ALLEGATION.

MELBOURNE, December 21,

A 10-year-old bOy was committed for trial in the Coroner's Court on a charge' of having murdered his father.

The boy, Geoffrey Keith Barker, was alleged to have shot his father, Afchol Vivian James Barker, 44, on December 3. According to witnesses, father and son had an argument about the amount of money the boy had won from his mother playing cards. The mother said it was 9d, but Geoffrey thought it was 1/1. The mother, Elsie May Barker, said' that on the morning of December 3 the family went out, leaving her in the house with Geoffrey. "Pains in Head." j Geoffrey cried with pains in the head |and she suggested they play cards to t take his mind off it. The game ended i\vith him winning 9d, although he said |it was 1/1.

In the afternoon two of the other boys took Geoffrey to the motor cyele races. j "When they came horae the four of us played cards for a while," Mrs. Barker said. "I lost another 9d, and I said to Geoff., 'That's 9d I owe you, as well as 9d this morning.' "He said, 'Yes,' and then said, *No. It was 1/1 this morning.' "He and his father then had a bit of an argument about it." Threat of Whipping. Mrs. Barker said she smacked Geoffrey and he went to push her. Her husband threatened to give Geoffrey a whipping, and the boy went outside.

"At teatime Geoffrey still stayed outride, and I thought he had gone fishing," Mrs. Barker continued. "After tea my husband sat at the kitchen table reading. "I went into the dining room, and, hearing a noise outside, looked out and saw Geoffrey standing by the kitchen window. I couldn't see what he wasj doin<». I heard my husband making a laughing noiso and say: 'Don't be silly.' "Soon after I heard a slight click, then my husband came into the dining room and said, 'He shot me.' "He told me to go up to Sinclair's and send for a doctor. "I met Geoffrey in the door screaming and crying. Wlien I told him where I was going he said, 'Let me go for him, ■ Mummy.' When he saw hie father he threw himself on the floor and cried, 'Daddy, I didn't mean it. Will you forgive me?' His father said, 'I know you didn't mean it.'" Constable McDonald, of Dandenong, said he went to the Barkers' home at 9.25 p.m. on December 3. "I Went Mad." Geoffrey said to him: "I'll take the blame. I did it. I went mad. Do what you like with me. Put me in gaol. Take me away. Dad and I had a row over a game of cards and some money, and we had a few hits. "After a while I went away and borrowed a rifle and came home, but I can't tell you anything after that. I must have gone mad." Later, the constable added, Geoffrey said: "I pointed the rifle at him in case I might frighten him from giving me another belting."