Final Evidence In Manslaughter Case

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30880, 13 October 1965, Page 20

Final Evidence In Manslaughter Case

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 12. Bruising on the body of a dead boy aged two and a half was caused by “something like a boxing punch,” a doctor told the Supreme Court in Wellington today.

The boy’s mother, Judith Joyce Stevens, aged 21, a housewife, faces charges of manslaughter and wilfully ill treating and assaulting Trevor James Stevens, who died in hospital on July 22.

Richard Thomson Bush, senior pediatrician at Hutt Hospital, who cared for the boy from the night of his admission until his death three days later, said Trevor died from brain injury and hemorrhage. To Mr D. S. Castle, for Stevens, Bush said the injuries he saw on the child’s body, other than the head injury, had no association with the death. The situation of the head bruises ruled out the possibility of the boy having fallen. Bush did not think that the bruises on the cheek could have been caused by the open hand. “I think the bruising was caused with something like a boxing punch,” he said. Carlton Murray Bullivant, pathologist at Hutt Hospital, said a post mortem on July 22 showed several body bruises and small abrasions on the back of the head. The skull bones were intact. A subdural hemorrhage not more than a week old was found, and there was damage and hemorrhage in the midbrain.

John Oubridge Mercer, director of pathology, Wellington Hospital, said he agreed with Bullivant’s findings.

Senior - Detective-Sergeant Dwan told of interviewing Mrs Stevens at her home when she denied ill-treating the boy. The boy’s father, Garry William Howard Stevens, said the only bruises Trevor had when admitted to hospital were those he had had for a week or more. He had never seen his wife strike Trevor.

Addressing the jury, Mr Castle said there was no evidence to show conclusively that anything from which Trevor suffered was the result of the actions of his mother. It was significant that the parents themselves took the child to a doctor. There had been no endeavour to hide anything. The Crown prosecutor, Mr J. H. C. Larsen, told the jury the evidence pointed to the accused as the person who inflicted the injuries which resulted in the boy’s death. The blows could not have been caused by a fall, because the prominent parts of the face, the nose and the chin, had not been affected. Mr Justice McGregor will sum up tomorrow.