Unfit To Plead On Murder Charge

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 10

Unfit To Plead On Murder Charge

“I am satisfied on the evidence of the two doctors that the accused is insane and that he cannot be committed for trial,” said Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday after depositions had been taken on a charge of murder against James Charles Andrew Bremner, aged 62, a cleaner.

Brenmer, who was charged with murdering his wife, Amelia Sybil Bremner, on June 16, was ordered to be kept in strict custody at Sunnyside Hospital until the pleasure of the Minister of Justice is known.

Mr M. F. Hobbs appeared for the accused and Mr N. W. Williamson for the Crown. John Michael Bremner, a school teacher, said he saw his parents in the living-room of their home about 12.30 p.m. on June 16, just before he went to bed. He was awakened by a bullet grazing his forehead. The light was on, and his father was standing at the foot of the bed with a rifle pointing at him.

His father told him that he had shot Mrs Bremner, and the witness struggled with him for the rifle. To Mr Hobbs the witness said his father had been agitated and difficult to communicate with before June 15. Detective Donald Norman Stewart said at 2.30 p.m. on June 16 he went to 173 Hills road, where he found Mrs Bremner bleeding from the head. The accused was mumbling to himself, and at one stage said he should have shot himself. Ronald Gordon Meikle, a house surgeon at the Dunedin Hospital when Mrs Bremner was admitted on June 16, said she was never conscious and died on June 23.

Detective Senior-Sergeant Michael Jones said he interviewed the accused at 5.25 a.m. on June 16. He was quite rational when the interview began.

The accused told him that he got home from work about

midnight. He had come home earlier to get something, but he had forgotten what it was. The accused had said: “My wife is a lovely person. She gets worried when I come home when I should be at work. She came back to work with me.”

The accused had said his wife set the table and made a drink when they got home. His wife went to bed and he washed his hands. “I did not mean to hurt her,” the accused had told him, said Detective SeniorSergeant Jones. “I fired two shots. I put the bullets in the gun and they went into the wall. I wanted to help her because she was so disturbed. I got muddled. I should have taken the lead out and packed them. I wanted to make a detonation.” The accused had said: “I went into my son’s bedroom. I put the light on. I shot my son to help him.” To Mr Hobbs the witness said that by the time he had finished the interview he had changed his mind that Bremner was quite rational.

James Ainslie Begg, deputy medical superintendent and principal psychologist of Sunnyside Hospital, called by the defence, said that Bremner was remanded to Sunnyside Hospital from June 16 to July 14. He was satisfied that Bremner was unfit to plead. Bremner was admitted to Sunnyside Hospital in 1942 and was not discharged until 1946, although he had two periods of several months on leave. The accused’s illness—schizophrenia—was a long-term one requiring treatment. “I consider the alleged offence a tragic sign of his illness of which he had but the vaguest concept,” said the witness. John Robert Earle Dobson, head of the department of psychological medicine of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, said that the accused had thought that his wife was in some distress and that he could help her by firing the rifle across her body. Dr. Dobson agreed with Dr. Begg that the accused was a severe case of schizophrenia.

Claim For £669

A claim against Brian James Moore, a company director, for £668 19s 2d by Agricultural and Livestock Services, Ltd., for alleged breaches of his duty as secretary of the plaintiff company, was adjourned part heard to today by Mr J. D. Kinder, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Alternatively the plaintiff claims the same amount for alleged breaches of contract. Moore, who denies all the allegations, is represented by Mr A. Hearn, and the plaintiff by Mr R. J. De Goldi. The hearing had been adjourned part-beard from May 17. In cross-examination yesterday, Moore told Mr De Goldi that the major reason he had held shares in various finance companies had been to have director’s qualifications.