Discharge for boy on murder count

Press, 11 February 1983, Page 10

Discharge for boy on murder count

PA Hamilton A Cambridge boy. aged 13. accused of murder, has been found not guilty.

The boy. whose name was suppressed, stood trial in the High Court at Hamilton charged with murdering a girl, aged eight, at Cambridge on September 17. last vear.

The jury of four women and eight men returned the verdict following a three-day trial and nearly eight hours of deliberations.

He was discharged by Mr Justice Bisson.

Mr C. Q. M. Almao prosecuted for the Crown. Mr A. Houston. Q.C.. with Mr J. J. O'Shea, appeared for the accused.

It was alleged that the boy sexually assaulted the girl, then, using two knives, stabbed her in the chest and cut her throat as she sat watching television in her home.

Two psychiatrists who gave evidence for the defence considered that the boyhad not been capable of knowing that what he was doing at the time of the incident was wrong.

Both told the Court that they considered the boy had suffered an "acute situational reaction or disturbance." The Tokanui medical supervisor. Dr Henry Bennett. said that after talking to the boy he considered the

accused knew the nature of the act and the fact that the knives could do her harm. He said the boy told him "once I started I felt I just had to keep going. What stopped me in the end was when her mother came home. I stopped for a minute when I thought I heard a door, then did it again until 1 heard her mother arrive." Dr Bennett said he believed that at the material time of the stabbing that led to the death the boy was not capable of knowing that what he was doing was wrong or was contrary to the law.

"I believe he was capable of appreciating the physical quality of the acts, the potential harmfulness of what he was doing," Dr Bennett said. He knew at the time of taking the girl’s panties down and touching her that it was wrong. Dr Bennett said.

“He was building up inside himself a sense of tension, sexual arousement and excitement which led the situation to one he could no longer psychologically deal with,” he said. “At that time something snapped. The thing that snapped was his ability to reason with objectivity.

“He was in a situation where he could no longer deal with the moral aspect of rightness and wrongness." Dr Bennett said.