NURSE NOT GUILTY

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33263, 28 June 1973, Page 16

NURSE NOT GUILTY

Entitled to use ‘some force’

A psychopaedic staff nurse, charged with the assault of a mental patient at Braemar Hospital on March 4, was found not guilty by a jury in the Nelson Supreme Court yesterday. The accused man, Norman Richard Ely, aged 26, was discharged by Mr Justice Roper.

Ely was represented by Mr M. A. Bungay, and the Crown by Mr J. D. Rabone, both of Wellington. In his summing up, his Honour told the jury it must not let any disquiet it might feel over the patient’s treatment over a number of days influence it in its verdict. This case, said his Honour, was something out of the ordinary for assault charges. The victim could not complain, nor could he speak. Psychopaedic nurses were entitled to use some force as a restraint.

“The Crown has to prove that the accused went beyond the reasonable bounds of force,” he said. In his address to the jury, Mr Rabone said the jury must decide if the injuries suffered by the patient were the result of intentional assault or of an accident.

He drew the jury’s attention to the injuries, and to medical evidence putting the time the injuries were suffered as before March 5.

He suggested the allegations that another nurse had hit the patient on the night of March 5 was a “red herring” and should be disregarded.

There was no evidence to; suggest that the witness. Lord, who alleged she saw Ely strike the blows, had any animosity towards him and the jury had to decide whether she saw the blows, or she made the whole thing up, said Mr Rabone. The patient was a big man, 14 to 15 stone, and he had been a very violent man, said Mr Bungay in his address. It was quite easy for a man as big as him, and as violent, to cause himself an Injury. At no stage did the Nurse Lord lodge any complaint about Ely’s alleged actions. The jury must look at the question of the total absence of blood from the patient’s mouth injuries, said Mr Bungay. There was not one bit of evidence which even mentioned blood coming from the ruptured vessels in his mouth, vet medical witnesses had said under cross-exami-nation that with the injuries sustained, a considerable quantity of blood shov'd have been apparent, said Mr Bungay.