Janssens Acquitted
(New Zealand Press Association)
WELLINGTON, Feb. 12.. After a four-hour retirement a jury in the Supreme Court at Wellington today found Neville Leon Janssens, aged 35, a dairy proprietor, not guilty of attempting to murder a traffic officer, Patrick Joseph Wallace Cole.
Janssens was also acquitted on a charge of discharging a firearm at Cole With intent tb do grievous bodily harm. In his final submissions Mr
J. D. Murray for the Crown said he did not suggest Cole’s coming between man and wife should be condoned, but an individual should not take the law into his own hands and settle the matter with a shotgun. The jury must decide whether Cole’s wounds were the result of careful shooting to miss or a bad shot by a man who tried to kill.
Mr R, Stacey, for Janssens, suggested that Janssens was entitled to fire a gun to scare away a “marauder who had intervened in his home.” Mr Justice McGregor told the jury that the accused was entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30364, 13 February 1964, Page 14
Word Count
177Janssens Acquitted Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30364, 13 February 1964, Page 14
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