Addresses In Murder Trial

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 3

Addresses In Murder Trial

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Nov. 18.

A jury of 11 men and one woman in the Supreme Court at Auckland today heard final addresses from counsel in the trial of Herbert Desmond McElroy, aged 42, a barman, who is charged with murdering Mrs Nancy Olivena Barraclough, aged 41, on August 17.

Mr D. B. Pain, for McElroy, submitted that the jury must come to the conclusion that it could not be murder because there was no intent to kill.

“If a person did intend to strangle somebody, there would be a violent grab of the throat that would leave bruising. But in this instance there is no bruising of any significance,” he said. Without intent, it could be a matter of manslaughter or no offence at all.

There was, in fact, no offence involved if they came to the conclusion that McElroy was justified in grabbing the woman as he did to get her from the room after he had ordered her out,

in effect ejecting a trespasser. “I suggest he was justified,” said Mr Pain. Mr Pain said there was also the possibility that the grabbing merely brought on a faint and that Mrs Barraclough suffocated in the wardrobe, McElroy thinking she was already dead when he put her there. With no intent on his part, there would be no offence, and it could be called an accident.

If the jury found that there was intent, they would also have to consider the question of provocation which could, in certain circumstances, reduce a crime of murder to one of manslaughter. McElroy was madly in love with Mrs Barraclough, but she had given him a barrage of abuse over a period as well as on the night of her death. Mr D. S. Morris, for the Crown, said that the prosecution case was that Mrs Barraclough died of an unlawful act committed by McElroy, and that he intended to cause her bodily injury likely to cause death and was reckless whether death ensued or not.

If the jury found that intent was not proved, it was contended that, in any event, the verdict must be manslaughter. What McElroy had said in Court was not what he had told the police three days after her death. He had then said he strangled her. He had also said she told him she was leaving and he used the words “I knew time was running out.”

“Perhaps that is it,” said Mr Morris. “Until that Wednesday night he was enjoying her favours—perhaps shared, and not alone as he would have wished—but then she told him she was going and he knew it was all over. At that time is not there the intent to kill?” Mr Justice Moller will sum up on Monday.

The Rev. A. G. Sullivan, vicar-elect of Hokitika, has been appointed Rural Dean of Westland. He will be instituted as vicar on December 8.