Court told man tried to cut throat

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34151, 12 May 1976, Page 17

Court told man tried to cut throat

A man accused of inurcier had been so despondent because he believed that his de facto wife might not return to live with him that he had attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a knife and a broken hottie. Mr Justice Roper and a jury were told in the Supreme Court yesterday. An unlicensed car dealerhas pleaded not guilty to! murdering Arthur Robert. Hines, aged 33. on January 9.' Accused has also pleaded" not guilty to alternative charges of wounding Clarice! Hilda Hines, his former de: facto wife, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm; and with intent to in jure on I the same date. Messrs B McClelland and! D. J L. Saunders appear for! the Crown and Messrs R. L.| Kerr and G. M. Brodie fori accused. When opening his case on Monday Mr McClelland said! that the Crown alleged that| accused had murdered Mrt

i Hines by driving a 4jin long i screwdriver into his back and i lung because accused did not ,want Mrs Hines, who had] i been living in a de facto! relationship with him, to re-1 turn to her husband. Donald James Williams, a I sawmill worker of Dobson.; isaid that in January he lived in Thackeray Street and knew) the deceased. Arthur Robert! Hines. On the early afternoon of January 9 he went with Mr: iand Mrs Hines and their son I ito 8 WTiittington Avenue in! ja car towing a trailer. The! trailer was unhitched and pushed up the driveway. The! car was then backed up the! {driveway and the trailer; {hitched on again. He saw Mrs Hines and accused at the back of the; house. He heard Mrs Hines •say to accused that she was (not putting up with any more’of this half-past-one-in-the-mbrning business. Mr Williams said that {accused asked Mr Hines to I get off the property. Mr j Hines walked away and {accused followed him and pushed Mr Hines on the: |shoulder with his hand. Mri ;Hines stumbled a little and; (carried on walking. When Mr Hines got about!

the middle of the drivewax he and accused started squabbling. Mr Hines fell over backwards. It appeared that he tripped over a gap in the concrete. Mr Hines sat up with his hands behind his back. Accused, was beside Mr Hines on his knees with one hand on his shoulder. Witness could not see what he was doing with his other hand. They were fighting and struggling’ Mrs Hines attempted to puli accused off her husband but was not successful. Mr Hines yelled to witness to get the police quick. As accused held Mr Hines on the ground accused put a screwdriver into his left shoulder. Then accused took a couple of strikes at Mrs Hines with the screwdriver. After running across the road to call the police Mr Williams said that when he got back Mrs Hines was driving the car down the drive with her husband in the passenger seat. As they went out the gate accused ran across the lawn and threw blows through the driver’s window at Mrs Hines. When Mrs Hines got the car oui on to the road she stopped to pick witness up. Accused got pinned between the car and the brick wall of the house. He was thrown over the boot of the car and hit the trailer. He finished up lying on the footpath. As Mrs Hines drove off he looked through the rear window and saw accused get up off the footpath and run into the front door of the house, Mr Williams said. To Mr Kerr, Mr Williams said that the fight between accused and Mr Hines had gone on for a little while before the screwdriver appeared. He did not see where accused got the screwdriver from. When he saw accused hitting Mrs Hines through the window of the car it was with his clenched fist and he was not holding a screwdriver. Accused could have been trying to grab the steering xvheel, said Mr Williams. William Allan Shaw, a drainlayer, said that he had known accused for about two years and had called a number of times to see him at 8 Whittington Avenue.

on one occasion early in, January there was nobody! home. When he xx r ent inside! he found that things had! been smashed up. There was; broken crockery, a refrig-1 erator was lying on its side! and furniture was smashed, i When he returned to the! house the next day accused was cleaning up. From whati accused said he understood! that there had been a flare" up and Mrs Hines had left him. He was getting things cleaned ' up so that she would return to him. "From what I could make out they were going to live apart for a few days so that they could vboth sort things out.” Mr Shaw said. Mr Shaw said he asked accused to stay at his place. When he got home accused’s caravan was in the driveway. Accused stayed in the caravan for several nights but witness saw very little of him. When he did see accused it appeared from what he said that it looked as if Mrs Hines was going to return to him. On Thursday, January 8, the day before the alleged murder, Mr Shaw said that after he got home from work he was watching television when accused asked him to play pool. They played for more than an hour at a billiard parlour in Sydenham. As they were returning home, accused said he remembered where there was a birthday party at a car sales yard. Accused bought a dozen large bottles of beer. They drank at the party until fairly late and witness was pretty drunk. Accused was also affected by drink but he drove his truck home. After arriving home they sat in the cab talking. Accused was very upset and he was talking about, how much he loved Mrs Hines and how much he wanted to get her back. Accused had said that if he could not get her back, life would not be worth living. Accused stabbed at the truck window with a knife and said: “Jesus I love that woman.” While standing by the truck accused said that he had a birthday in a few days and that if he could not

have Chris (Mrs Hines) he would kill himself. When they were talking in the kitchen accused had a knife in his hand. Witness thought that accused was going to cut his throat with it because of the way he had been talking and the wax’ in which he was, holding the knife. “I made a grab for the j knife and ran outside with lit. I hid it under a tree. When I came back accused mentioned that I would have more knives in the house. He was pretty upset. I got the plastic tray of knives out of the cupboard and hid it too,” said Mr Shaw. i Witness said he telephoned Mrs Hines from a call box and asked her to come around and talk to accused because he was very upset. On his return to the house accused was in his truck with a broken bottle and appeared to be cutting his throat. Mr Shaw said he told accused that Mrs Hines was coming to see him but accused did riot believe him so he went to his boss’s place a couple of blocks away, got him out of bed and telephoned Mrs Hines again. When he got home the police were there and accused had gone. Next morning he went to the boss’s place and spoke to accused on the radiotelephone in the truck. Accused asked him what he had done the previous night. Witness said there had been a bit of bother and he would tell him about it xvhen he knocked off at 5 p.m. Accused seemed to ■ be worried that he had done something -or broken something. He appeared to be very vague about what happened the night before, said Mr Shaw. To Mr Kerr, Mr Shaw said that he had told Mrs Hines on the telephone that accused was trying to cut his throat with a bottle and a knife. From the conversation he thought that she was going to come. Accused believed that Mrs Hines would return to him. I Dr Leonard Lawrence iTreadgold, a pathologist, said (that he conducted a post-; {mortem examination on the! {body of Mr Hines. In his I 'opinion the cause of death {was a massive haemorrhage!

from a penetrating wound of the left lung. The wound penetrated the back and. front walls of the chest Shown a screwdriver with! a yellow plastic handle Dr ! Treadgold said that it could have caused the fatal injury. Mr Hines could have lived for some minutes after the wound was inflicted before he lost sufficient blood into the chest for him to show signs of shock, pallor and eventual loss of consciousness due to haemorrhage into the left side of the cnest. To Mr Kerr, Dr Treadgold said that if the screwdriver had struck the sixth or seventh ribs squarely in the middle it might not have penetrated the lung. If the screwdriver had struck the shoulder blade with the same amount of force the injury would not have been likely to be as serious as it was. ' Detective Senior - Sergeant Arthur Gifford Irvine Rodgers said that ne interviewed accused at 4.12 am. on January 9. He asked accused if he had a bit of trouble this afternoon and he asked what he was to be charged with. Witness said that he was afraid that Arthur Hines was dead and that accused xvould be charged with murder. After being cautioned accused asked about the woman and was told that she was fit and well. Accused's lawyer, Mr Kerr, was telephoned but there was no reply. Accused had remarked: “I’ve got no Vvotries ,ui i,,v next 20 years.” He was given pemiission to telephone his cousin. Barry Shaw, and he made arrangements with him for the saiekeeping of his caravan and property at his house. Accused was given a cup of tea and arrangements were made for a doctor to examine him and treat him for his injuries. Asked why he had done it accused had replied: “She was going to clear out.” After Mr Kerr spoke to accused he said that he would not be making a statement. To Mr Kerr, Detective Rodgers said that when he first saw accused he xvas; agitated and was showing signs of tension. The Crown had concluded its case xxffien the Court rose; yesterday.