Evidence For Defence In McGregor Murder Trial

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29754, 22 February 1962, Page 14

Evidence For Defence In McGregor Murder Trial

( N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 21.

Three defence witnesses gave evidence in the Supreme Court at Auckland today in the trial of John Hector McGregor, aged 28, a glazier, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering his neighbour, Wallace Bernard Whiteford, at Papatoetoe on January 9.

McGregor is represented by Dr. A. M. Finlay, with him Mr J. S. Angland, and the Crown case is being conducted by Mr G. D. Speight. The trial is before Mr Justice Gresson. The trial will enter its fourth day tomorrow when counsel will address the jury and his Honour will sum up. A crowded court heard the first defence witness, Roy McGregor, father of the accused, say in answer to Mr Speight, that his son had behaved in a way he would not have expected but for the liquor he had had that day. Answering Mr Angland, McGregor said that when he arrived home from work on January 9, his son, wife and children were at home. Whiteford invited him to come to his house for a drink and he accepted the invitation.

The last time he visited Whiteford’s home was more than 12 months before January 9. Argument McGregor said that when he returned home his son asked where he had been and when he said he had been at Whiteford’s his son became terribly upset and there was an argument between them. “I can never visualise Jack striking me, but that was the nearest it had ever been,” said McGregor. He said he • kept out of the dispute between his son and Whiteford. At one stage his son said that he and his father should not argue and later the son asked him to bring Whiteford over to the house.

McGregor said he declihed to do this, saying he would do it “some other time.”

McGregor said his son had more liquor than he could hold that night. There had been antagonism between his son and Whiteford for over two years. Cross-examined by Mr Speight, McGregor said his son had not seen Whiteford for an hour or so before the incident. Wife In Box

Maree Lorraine McGregor, aged 23, toe wife of the accused and toe mother of ‘wo children, total the Court how her husband walked out of the house carrying the

rifle. He had a “non-seeing gaze,” she said. She followed her husband calling him to stop. “We were at toe fence before I realised it was there and I knocked him,” she said. “I don’t know whether I pushed him or exactly what I did. He was over the fence. I must have stumbled getting over toe fence because what stopped me from falling was when I put my hand on Jack. “At toe time the rifle went off I was touching his left arm which swung round. As he swung round the rifle went up and outwards and it just went off,” said Mrs McGregor. Earlier in her evidence Mrs McGregor told of disputes with toe Whitefords concerning a fence and other matters.

ties, said the witness—that McGregor was not telling the truth, that he was an epileptic, that he was hysterical, or that he was “an epileptic equivalent” and it was decided to test him further. On February 8 accused was given a quantity of beer approximating to 19 eightounce glasses—the amount he said he had drunk before the evening of the fatality. Further tests were then made. There was no sign of any epilepsy, or that accused was an epileptic equivalent. At one stage, while the man was being tested, it became obvious that he was in a dissociated state, said the witness. This was a state which was defined as an overshadowing of consciousness. Consciousness was altered.

On four occasions, she said, Whiteford had “wolfwhistled” her when she was in her shorts.

A dissociate was capable of carrying out quite complex and apparently wellintegrated acts—but these might be quite foreign to the normal personality, Question of Intent

To Mr Speight, Mrs McGregor denied that her husband had made a threat against Whiteford as he walked out of the kitchen.

Bethune said he felt the accused’s statement to the police could well be true. Factors he thought important were that he had 18 months or so of pent-up anger against Whiteford, that he was apparently being cajoled by his wife to do something about it, that he found his father was, in fact, being very friendly with his neighbour, and that he had had a fair quantity of liquor. If McGregor were in a state of massive dissociation on the night of the fatality he would have no ability to form a conscious intent, said Bethune.

Earlier Mrs McGregor stepped down from the witness box and gave a demonstration of how toe rifle went off.

She said that when she held her husband and swung him round that appeared to make the rifle swing round too. Medical Evidence Henry Charles Bethune, a medical practitioner, said he examined the accused on January 20. He concluded the accused was then psyehiatrically normal, probably of a little lower than average intelligence. McGregor said he had been concussed in the past and that on two occasions after drinking he had had blackouts. This raised four possibili-

To Mr Speight the witness said a man’s mind tended to repress recollections of “some horrible crime” committed by him. This was a normal defence mechanism.