Man Charged With Attempted Murder

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30092, 28 March 1963, Page 16

Man Charged With Attempted Murder

(Neu? Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 27. “I’ve stabbed Doug in the guts,” Gordon Clifford Reynolds, aged 26, a rabbiter, allegedly told a policeman after an incident on February 2 which resulted in his appearing in the Magistrate’s Court today charged with the attempted murder of his brother, Douglas John Reynolds. He pleaded not guilty.

The Magistrate was Mr J. B. Thomson, S.M. Detective-Sergeant R. A. Butler prosecuted and Mr I. A. Borrin appeared for the defendant.

Richard Thomas Aldridge, a surgeon, said he examined Douglas Reynolds when he was admitted to the hospital. Reynolds was suffering from a penetrating wound of the abdomen, very severe blood loss, and had a wound in his right armpit which penetrated about two inches into the tissue. Maxwell James Stephens, a police constable, told the Court he had been sitting in a police car when Reynolds came up to him and said: “I want you to come round home. Tve stabbed Doug in the guts with a knife.” Stephens alleged that Reynolds told him he had hit his brother low in the stomach and might have hit the kidneys and bladder. in the kitchen of the Reynolds house he had found Douglas John Reynolds lying on the floor with a large wound in the stomach, said the witness His father, who was bending over him wiping blood away with a damp cloth, was in an advanced state of intoxication and had to be removed when the doctor arrived, as he proved a hindrance. Douglas John Reynolds, aged 20, the victim of the stabbing, said he had gone to the Paraparaumu Hotel after lunch on the day of the incident. After the hotel closed he went home and accused. Gordon Reynolds, began an argument with him. Witness said he jumped up and his father went to grab him. He knocked his father unconscious. The next thing he remembered was feeling a burning pain in his stomach “I knew I had been stabbed because I saw the knife in Gordon’s hand. I fell to the floor. “Gordon said: That’ll fix you,’ and threw the knife on the floor and then walked out."

Douglas Edward Reynolds, a bushman. father of accused, said when he had returned from the hotel on the evening of the incident he sat down at the table and fell asleep. The next thing he recalled was Douglas saying something to Gordon. “I jumped up to get hold of Douglas to stop him fighting. The next thing I remember was Douglas staggering around and saying: ‘Look what he has done to me.’” Mavi Melda Reynolds said there had previously been ill-feeling between her sons A couple of times they had gone beyond the arguing stage and “taken to each other." Asked if there had ever before been words exchanged between Douglas and his

father, Mrs Reynolds said there had been, but it had neve, developed into a “proper row.” Mr Borrin: But there have been blows between them ’in the past, haven’t there? Witness: Um, yes. Edward Graham Perry, a detective senior-sergeant, said Reynolds had declined to make a statement when arrested on the morning of February 3. To a series of written questions he had replied that he could not say it w r as his intention to stab his brother, and that he supposed he had been frightened. Reynolds allegedly added: “I just did it on the spur of the moment.’’ The Magistrate committed Reynolds for trial at the next session of the Supreme Court on May 7.