Girl Found Guilty Of Manslaughter

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30998, 2 March 1966, Page 3

Girl Found Guilty Of Manslaughter

Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. March 1. A jury in the Supreme Court. Auckland today, found c 16-year-old girl not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of her father.

I he jury, which reached its \ erdict after a two-hour retirement, made a recommendation for lenienc\.

Mr Justice Richmond remanded Denise Virginia Hettig for sentence.

Hettig. who was represented by Mr P. B. Temin and Mr D. A. Lyon, had pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering her father. Richard Hettig. aged 45. at Anawhata, on July 29. 1965. Mr D. S. Morris conducted the case for the Crown. The jury returned to Court to seek further direction on provocation from his Honour and then returned its verdict minutes later.

Tn his address to the jury, Mr Morris said culpable homicide could be reduced to manslaughter if there were provocation. When provocation was raised, the defence did not have to prove it. The onus lay on the Crown to exclude it. There could, however, be no question of acquittal, no possibilitay of a not guilty verdict, once this was raised. The verdict would have to be murder or manslaughter. LOSS OF CONTROL

Mr Morris defined manslaughter and said the circumstances of the case must be sufficient to deprive a person having the power of selfcontrol of a normal person of that power. At the time Denise Hettig took the rifle and fired it, did she have this sudden and temporary loss of self control? Were her actions not the result of deliberation and concentration?

The final Crown witness was Roger Gordon Scott, a

Post and Telegraph linesman, who said he first met the accused and her father when he installed a telephone at their home. He began taking out Denise Hettig and continued for about two months doing so, ceasing about a month before her father was killed.

Witness got on well with accused's father until the accused told her father they wanted to become engaged. Then he was told not to go to their place again. PROVOCATION CLAIMED The defence of provocation was raised by Mr Temm. who called her action that of a girl driven by an obsessed father to the point where she did not know what she was doing. He said it was admitted that Denise Hettig pulled the trigger and shot her father. But the background was that her father was obsessed

about his relationship with his wife, the home was isolated, and tlie girl was lonely. When she was not alone she was subjected to his continual attacks on her mother.

Her friendship with the boy, Roger Scott, had relieved this loneliness, but her father had put a price on allowing her to get engaged. Then when he had got what he sought he had stopped the association of these two young people. At this point her mind was being beaten into a condition that led to her final act. Her father that night had received a letter about his divorce petition, had no doubt gloated over this to Denise who, unable to sleep, had lain on the bed and then got up and taken the loaded rifle. Mr Temm submitted that she fired it when she had no control over her actions any longer.