BOY FOUND GUILTY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 2

BOY FOUND GUILTY

ATTEMPTED MURDER

ATTACK ON ELDERLY. WOMAN

(P.A.) BLENHEIM, this day. After a retirement of 45 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on a charge of attempted murder against Allan Joseph Pope, the, fifteen-year-old farmhand, who, on October 4, attacked with a heavy plough spanner Mrs. Muriel Marguerita Robertson, mother-in-law of his employer, Arthur Gordon Roberts, on whose property at Kaka Ridge, he was engaged as a State 'The boy and Mrs. Robertson, an elderly woman, were alone on the farm "at the 'time, and the first intimation of what had occurred was Pope's appearance at the Ward Post Office, where he asked the postmistress to send for the police van as he had murdered Mrs. Robertson. A police party found the woman lying on the floor of the kitchen with grave head injuries. Doctor Williams, superintendent of the Nelson Mental Hospital, who was called by the prosecution, gave evidence that accused was not insane but, in his opinion, would be certifiable as an anti-social subject under a special provision of the Mental Defectives Act. The defence offered no evidence, but counsel, Mr. A. A. Mac Nab, stressed the youthfulness of the accused, and sought to show that he was incapable of appreciating the quality of his act. Mr. Justice Finlay told the jury that he concurred wholeheartedly in the verdict. In remanding Pope, he commented on the difficulty he faced in dealing with him.