STABBING CASE

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31053, 7 May 1966, Page 16

STABBING CASE

S.M. Reserves Decision

Decision was reserved until next Friday by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., on a charge in the Children’s Court yesterday against a 15-year-old girl of attempting to murder her mother in Christchurch on January 29. Evidence had been heard last week, and yesterday the Magistrate heard counsel. For the accused, Mr P. G. S. Penlington said the Court was not dealing with an adult, but with a child, who was very immature. The stabbing was not disputed. The defence was confined to the crucial issue of intention.

It did not matter what a reasonable person would have intended or foreseen, said Mr Penlington. There was doubt as to the accused's capacity to form and maintain an intent. There was no evidence that she had been violent towards her mother before. The Crown Solicitor (Mr C. M. Roper) said that such words used by the accused when she was asked why she stabbed her mother as: “We were all sick of her and wanted to get rid of her,” and “I thought she would die. I just didn’t care," were capable of only one interpretation.

Mr Roper said the accused had been capable of forming an intent to leave home and to maintain that intent, as she had run away from home on numerous occasions. She might be immature, but there was no suggestion she did not know what she was doing. “Disagreeable though the decision may be, there is room for only one conclusion —that the accused intended to kill her mother,” said Mr Roper.