Manslaughter charge: man committed for trial

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32539, 24 February 1971, Page 17

Manslaughter charge: man committed for trial

Trevor Bennett Ball, aged 28, a pelt worker (Mr K. N. Hampton), was committed to the Supreme Court for trial after depositions had been taken in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday on a charge of the manslaughter of his wife at Kaiapoi on January 24. He pleaded not guilty. Ball was released on bail. Messrs J. G. Laurenson and L. C. Fulford, Justices of the Peace, were on the bench.

A man whose name was suppressed said in evidence that he went to see the defendant at Kaiapoi on January 23 and went drinking with him. When they returned the defendant’s wife was cooking tea for herself and her six children. The defendant went to bed after tea and the witness and Mrs Ball went out to buy some flagons of beer. When they returned the defendant had some beer with them in the kitchen and went back to bed. The witness said that it was suggested by someone that he go to the bedroom with Mrs Ball. He did not know why they went to the bedroom. When he was nearly asleep, he was wakened very suddenly by Ball, who knocked him to the floor. The defendant’s wife was fully clothed, he imagined,

said the witness, and so was he. Nothing occurred, he said. When the defendant came in he said “I expected something like this” and told the witness to “get going.” There was no argument between the defendant and his wife said the witness, and Ball did not strike his wife. The first he knew of Mrs Ball’s death was on January 24, when he was spoken to by the police. Rosalie Janice Holland, a neighbour of the defendant, said that Ball came to her door between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on January 24 and said “Min’s dead. Can I use the telephone.” Constable Peter Barry Gilligan said that he interviewed the defendant, who told him he found the first witness kissing his wife and he “got stuck into him.” He turned on his wife, but only slapped her. He said it should have been the first witness who had died. Detective John Alexander Ell said that he found Mrs Ball’s body, dressed only in a skirt and panties, lying on her back with her arms at her side. There were bloodstains on the bed, on a straw mat and on the door. Pathologist’s evidence

Leonard Lawrence Treadgold, a pathologist, said that he considered the cause of death was sub-arachnoid haemorrhage of the brain One of the causes of such an injuiry was any form of violence to the skull. He was

unable to say what had caused the haemorrhage. In his post mortem examination he found bruising and swelling on the forehead, blackening of the eyelids, a swollen upper lip, bruised arm, bruised chest and shins. A bruise on the abdomen could have been caused by a fist or a boot and had been given with considerable force.

Detective Douglas Norman Scott said the defendant told him he belted into his wife to teach her a lesson, but he had not meant to kill her. He picked her up off the floor and put her to bed and she was breathing and asleep. Ball said that he had gone to bed early at 8 p.m. because he was pretty full and woke up at 11.50 p.m. when he had sobered up. He went into the kitchen and found his wife And the first witness drinking. They were “full up to the eyeballs," he said.

Some years ago, Ball said, he had found his wife in bed with another person.

At 7 a.m. the following day, the defendant told him, he felt sorry for his wife and wiped blood from her nose. She was still breathing, and he lay beside her for about an hour. He then realised she was not breathing and telephoned for a doctor.

Counsel submitted that the medical evidence was insufficent to put the defendant on' trial. There was no evidence/ he said, to link the injury; which caused death with al blow to the head. I