JURY DISAGREES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17691, 17 February 1923, Page 8

JURY DISAGREES.

THE WANGANTJI ASSAULT CASE. (SPECIAL TO "THE PBEBS-n WANGAMJI, February 16. ! The jury to-day disagreed in the case Rex v. Owen. Accused was charged with intent to do bodily harm and with doing actual bodily harm to one John Henry Butler. Owen found Butler in bed with his (Owen's) wife, and attacked him with a razor, inflicting fourteen cute about the body. The Owens were married 1 seventeen! years and have three ohildfren, but Butler and Mrs Owen were old sweethearts. Butler, who was living away from his wife, came to Wanganui to work. Mrs Owen came also, and she and Butler lived as man and wife, the thiree Owen- children and the Butler child be-incr in. tho house. The evidence showed that Owen got in through a back window and left very affectionate letters to wife and children, saving good-bye. The inference from the letters was that Owen intended to commit suicide, but when he went into tho bedroom the sight threw him off his balance. Mr Justice Reedi directed the jury that there was no evidence of intent to assault Butler, but that the assault was not disputed. Provocation, he said, was no excuse for a man taking the law into his own hands. It was tho duty of the jury to uphold the British law. not the unwritten daw. The case will be rehe'ard next week.