IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23330, 16 May 1941, Page 10

IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE

Neiling Guilty Of Manslaughter

MURDER TRIAL ENDS

CP.A.) WELLINGTON, May 15. After a retirement of four hours and a half, including the tea adjournment of an hour, the jury in the Supreme Court, Wellington, to-night returned a verdict of guilty or manslaughter against Leonard Neiling, a brushmaker, aged 29, whose trial on a charge of murdering Mrs Marjorie Livingston Horton commenced on Monday. The Chief Justice (the Rt. ,Hon. Sir Michael Myers) sentenced Neiling jo imprisonment for life. .. . When the jury announced its verdici, at 9.8 p.m., and the prisoner was asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed, he said: “I have this to say. I am innocent of the charge." "I feel,” said the prisoner’s senior counsel, Mr W. E. Leicester, “that although the prisoner has made that observation. as counsel for the defence. I should say this. The defence feels that what it has been permitted to say throughout the trial is sufficient, with this exception. I feel it my duty to draw the attention of your Honour to the fact that the evidence shows that defendant was affected, or presumably affected, by liquor at the time the incidents took place.” Upon his Honour asking for information about a conviction for assault on a female recorded against the prisoner in 1938, Mr T. P. McCarthy, junior counsel for the prisoner, who appeared for the prisoner on that occasion, said that a drunken brawl took place in Petone. and during the struggle Miss Rangi Whelu, who had given evidence on the murder charge, was hit. "You have been found guilty of a vile, sordid, brutal offence,” said his Honour to the prisoner, “and you have been- convicted upon evidence which the jury has* regarded as conclusive, and I share that view. . They have taken a merciful view of the case in finding you guilty of manslaughter only. I shall not take on myself the responsibility of allowing you to be at large even after the fairly substantial term that is usually imposed nowadays for the offence of manslaughter. The way in which you knocked this woman about and then raped her—knocked her about in such a way as to cause her death—these facts, as I say. constitute a vile, brutal crime. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned. and kept at hard labour for jife.” , After the prisoner had left the dock, his Honour explained to the jury that the sentence did not mean that the prisoner would remain in prison for life. It would depend on himself. If he could after a certain period satisfy the Prisons Board that he was safe to be at large, the board would act accordingly, but in the meantime he had a duty to protect the public from men of that kind. During the luncheon adjournment to-day the jury visited the scene of the offence at Oriental Bay. They retired to consider that verdict at 4.28 p.m., and returned at 8.24 p.m. to ask the Chief Justice a question about the legal definitions of murder and manslaughter. They returned again at 9 p.m., and received a further direction, and eight minutes later delivered the verdict. Address to Jury Addressing the jury, Mr Leicester said that the jury might hold the view that the accused was- not a particularly worthy individual. He had. served part of a sentence for breaking and entering, and at the time of his arrest was on probationary licence. If he did not invite Mrs Horton to accompany him to Oriental Bay, at least he readily enough accompanied her. at her suggestion. But, said Mr Leicester, the' jury was not concerned so much with the worthiness or tinworthiness of the individual as with the vital question whether the Grown had or had not established beyond alFreasonable doubt that the accused was guilty of murder. If the jury found that.it had been established that accused was the man driven round to * Oriental- Bay, there was no evidence to show:when he left Mrs Horton. There were three links On which the Crown relied—the state of accused’s clothes, his disappearance, and his conduct in Auckland. There was not a tittle of evidence to show that the knotted handkerchief found on the beach was his property, and the bloodstained handkerchief and the bloodstains on trousers were, as the judge had pointed out, quite capable of an innocent explanation. There was nothing to show how the blood on the coat and waistcoat got there, or when and where, and • there was .nothing to show that the blood was of the same group as the blood of Mrs Horton. If die blood was the result of a struggle at Oriental Bay,, how, did it happen that the. sleeves -escaped any signs. i Jh.,' regard to the disappearance of accused, Mr-Leicester said Neiling presented himself on January 9 for breakfast at the home of Mrs Collins, saw the probation officer in Wellington, went to Khandallah to see about work, and on January 10 left Petone for Wellington. He met Mr Quintal, and then stayed with Mr and Mrs Quintal at Plimmerton for several days. In regard to accused’s actions in Auckland, why could the jury not assume that they were consistent with th? actions of a man who did not want to be punished for a breach of probation, and serve the remainder of his sentence. Mr Leicester proceeded to discuss the conflict of medical evidence as to the exact cause ,of death. 9 ' ' ' in ii i :•