HOSPITAL NURSE ACQUITTED

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25483, 1 May 1948, Page 8

HOSPITAL NURSE ACQUITTED

ALLEGED POISONING OF MILK

(P.A.) HAMILTON, April 30. After a retirement of about an hour and a half the jury returned at 2.40 p.m. with a verdict of not guilty on both counts in the case in which Fay Roberta Phillips, a tutor sister at the Taumarunui Hospital was charged in the Supreme Court at Hamilton, with administering, or causing to be adminsitered, belladonna or some allied poison to the sub-matron .of the Taumarunui Hospital with intent to injure or annoy. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr J. F. Strang) asked Mr Justice Gresson for his reasons for not accepting some of the evidence, and said the reasons were necessary so that an appeal could be considered. Summing up, his Honour said the two counts were alternative, and that if the jury found that the accused was innocent there should be a verdict of not guilty on both counts, while if guilty it should be on only one. He asked the jury to decide in three stages: was poison administered to injure and annoy? What form of poison was used? Did the accused administer it? In evidence to-day, Detective-Sergeant W. H. Cromwell said that when he visited Waikawa Beach, near Waikanae, and saw Sister Phillips, who was on holiday, the accused denied any knowledge of the incident, and added that she did not even know what belladonna looked like. The witness told the accused that she was seen'in the dining room just before the dinner bell sounded and was also seen to leave shortly after. He told her that the glasses had no milk in them before her entry, but that after she left the room there was milk in the glass in front of the sub-matron’s usual place at the table. The accused said she always got on well with Sister Denison, who had never done her an Injury, and she could not suggest anyone who could have added poison to the milk. Next day the witness returned to Waikanae and told the accused that he had a warrant for her arrest on a charge of administering poison to Sister Denison with intent to injure or annoy.