SUPREME COURT Acquitted Of Attempted Murder; Held Insane

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30453, 29 May 1964, Page 14

SUPREME COURT Acquitted Of Attempted Murder; Held Insane

A verdict of not guilty, on the ground of insanity, was given by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday in the trial of Keith Garfield Morris, on a charge of attempted murder of Constable Andrew Robert McFarlane on February 25. The accused was found guilty of discharging a firearm at Ruebin Curtis Warnock on February 25 with intent to intimidate.

I The jury gave its verdicts I after a retirement of four hours and a half. The trial began on Monday. Mr Justice Wilson ordered that the accused be kept in I strict custody at Sunnyside Hospital until the pleasure of the Minister of Justice is j known. ; Mr R. A. Young, with him i Mr P. G. S. Penlington, appeared for the accused, and ! Mr C. M. Roper for the Crown. His Honour, summing up, j said there had been considerI able inconsistencies in the evidence of witnesses. When things happened which excited or perhaps frightened persons it was not dishonest •that their recollections should vary and contradict each other. Events on the night of February 25 were most unusual. They were startling and in a sense dramatic. It Would be a superior being who could record what happened and say in what order the events took place and re-

call the events accurately some months later. His Honour said that unless there was. some other reason for believing a witness to be untruthful or unreliable inconsistencies in the evidence were no reason for disbelieving the witness. There was no great. difference on the general pattern of what happened. Only the ' details varied, and the jury might well consider they were not very important, anyway. His Honour said that, if the jury accepted the accused’s statement that he fired back at Constable McFarlane and tried to hit him, there was any amount of evidence that he intended to hit the constable. This would take the jury a long way to accepting that the accused intended to kill him. “I came to the conclusion that the statement was, freely, made and without any pressure, and in circumstances in which the accused was unlikely to make an untruthful statement. In my opinion,

Detective-Sergeant O’Donovan acted with complete fairness and propriety in taking the statement.”

His Honour said the jury would naturally consider the evidence of Dr. Macleod, who knew the nature of the accused’s illness. The doctor said that if he had been at the hospital he would have allowed the statement to be taken but would have warned the detective that it might be a very unreliable document. The doctor had said the accused might have had a tendency to compensate for his failure in life by talking big, and his statement could be regarded with considerable suspicion. His Honour said the intention of the accused was the crux of the case in relation to’ the charge of attempted murder. “The defence of insanity was not put forward by the accused and not really by the Crown. Mr Young says there is no evidence to show the accused was insane at the time,” his Honour said. “But, if there is any evidence of insanity, I am bound to put it to you that if you find him not guilty you are bound to consider if he was insane at the time and did you acquit him on that account. If you conclude he was insane you must consider if his insanity was of a kind that would be a defence to this charge.”

His Honour said that the evidence of insanity was fairly tenuous. There Was no evidence that Constable McFarlane had fired at the accused’s Waist. He did not hit him in the waist. “There is no suggestion that the constable was trying to do more than disable a man who was in possession of a lethal weapon and who could have murdered anyone in the vicinity if not checked.” On the charge of discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate, his Honour said it was difficult to imagine the accused having any other intention than to scare Warnock by firing a rifle in the lounge. On this charge, he was either guilty or not guilty. There was no room for finding him not guilty on account of his insanity.

Attempted Rape Of Child Alleged The trial of Raymon Colin Glue, aged 32, a Railways Department employee, charged with the attempted rape of a five-year-old girl on February 18 and indecent assault on the girl on the same date, began before Mr Justice Wilson and a. jury in the Supreme Court yesterday. The accused, represented by Mr R. L. Kerr, pleaded not guilty. Mr C. M. Roper appeared for the Crown, Detective A. D. Stevenson said in evidence that when he interviewed the accused and told him the nature of the complaint, the accused said he could not imagine himself doing a thing like that. He said he was very tired, wanted somewhere to sleep, and got into the girl’s bed. The girl’s father returned and beat him up. Opening the defence case, Mr Kerr said the defence rested to a large extent on the amount of liquor the accused had consumed. it was for the Crown to prove the accused had the necessary intent. The trial will continue today.