WOUND IN FOOT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 11

WOUND IN FOOT

SOLDIER'S NEGLIGENCE COURT-MARTIAL VERDICT (P.A.) INVERCARGILL, Wednesday. A court-martial sat in Invercargill to-day to hear charges against a soldier who received a bullet wound through his foot. The Court announced that it had found the accused. Private Thomas James Calderwood, not guilty of wilfully shooting himself through the foot, thereby making himself unfit for overseas service. On an alternative charge of negligently handling a rifle, the Court found accused guilty and announced that its sentence would be made known after it had been confirmed by the officer commanding the Southern Military District, Brigadier O. H. Mead.

The prosecutor, Captain Hopper, said the accused was granted special leave from June 17 to 21 because of the illness of his wife. An extension of two days was granted. About June 3 8 accused borrowed a rifle for the purpose of shooting cats alleged to lie a nuisance where he was staying. According to his statement, he took the rifle to a workshop on June 22 for cleaning before returning it and accidentally shot himself through the right foot.

Counsel for the accused, Mr. H. K. Carswell, said there was suspicion against the accused, but the suspicion was not sufficient to secure conviction. Suspicion attached to the accused because he was in stockinged feet. Evidence would be given that he was in the habit of going about the house in such a way and that he had no slippers. If accused had been guilty of wilfully wounding himself and wanted to excuse himself he could easily have manufactured a more convincing story than the one about cats. Counsel submitted that there was no suggestion in the evidence that accused wilfully shot himself.