Discharged Before Case Finished

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30898, 3 November 1965, Page 3

Discharged Before Case Finished

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, November 2. A 20-year-old partly crippled deaf mute, Max Edward Hart, a storeman, was discharged on a count of manslaughter in the Supreme Court at Nelson today.

Hart was charged with unlawfully killing his father, Archie Hart, aged 57, a farmer, of Richmond, on August 7.

The Crown alleged that two kicks by the accused separated a small intestine causing peritonitis which led to the father’s death. It was said in evidence that there were several other opportunities for that to have occurred between the time the father launched himself on to the fallen youth and attacked him and when accused struggled free. The jury was not required to make a decision as Mr Justice Wilson, of Christchurch, said that on the evidence it would be quite impossible to have found accused guilty of the charge. His Honour said this after eight of the 10 Crown witnesses had been heard.

The evidence of the other two, he said, had no bearing on the major charge.

Hart was also charged tentatively with assaulting his father by kicking him. After a retirement of 10 minutes the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Han was represented by Mr G. Leggat, of Christchurch, with him Mr J. G. R. Tidswell, of Nelson. The Crown Prosecutor was Mr D. J. Boyle.