Life term for rape, murder of widow

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 5

Life term for rape, murder of widow

A jury in the High Court yesterday found Samuel Dino Hohua, aged 34, guilty of the rape and murder of a widow who was found dead in the bedroom of her flat in Lincoln Road, Addington, in February.

Hohua, a sickness beneficiary, was also found guilty on charges of unlawfully entering the flat of the woman, Ellen May Dixon, aged 72, with intent to commit burglary, and similarly of unlawfully entering the adjoining flat of a woman neighbour of Mrs Dixon.

Mr Justice Holland sentenced Hohua to life imprisonment on the charge of murder, and to concurrent jail terms of eight years on the rape charge and one year on each charge of unlawfully entering the flats.

In giving its verdict of guilty on the charge of murder, the jury rejected a defence of insanity raised during the trial. The jury reached its verdicts at 3.30 p.m., after a retirement of four hours. The jury foreman’s announcement of the verdict of guilty on the major charge was met by relieved gasps from the public gallery, which included relatives of Mrs Dixon. Some went forward after the court adjourned to thank the Crown prosecutors.

Hohua showed no emotion at hearing the verdicts but left the court with head bowed. His Honour thanked jurors for their public duty in a trial which he said had been more unpleasant than most. He excused the jurors from further service for five years, if they so wished. The trial lasted five days, evidence and counsel’s addresses occupying the first four days. Messrs G. k. Panckhurst and R. E. Neave appeared for the Crown and Messrs L. M. O’Reilly and M. J. B. Hobbs for Hohua. Evidence in the trial had been that Mrs Dixon was found dead with gross head injuries after being beaten

and kicked in her bedroom.

Before his summing-up to the jury, his Honour addressed the court in the jury’s absence. He referred to legal precedents in relation to defences raised, on behalf of accused persons, of diseases of the mind. He said he was on the view that the issue of insanity was one that should be left to the jury to decide. However, it was incumbent on a judge to rule whether there was evidence enabling jurors to reach that conclusion, because the onus of proof was on the prosecution.

His Honour said that if it was for a judge to determine the question of disease of the mind, his view would be that he was not satisfied that Hohua suffered from a disease of the mind. The evidence of Dr R. W. Medlicott, a psychiatrist, had shown no more than that Hohua, with limited intelligence, had a personality disorder as a result of which he was inclined to lose control of himself much earlier, and to a much greater extent, than a normal person. “But I am satisfied that, as a matter of law, a personality disorder of that kind, coupled as it so often is with low intellect, is not a disease of the mind,” he said.

His Honour said Dr Medlicott had used medical terms which no more than repeated that in his opinion Hohua was suffering from disease of the mind. His Honour said he considered Dr Medlicott had worked backwards and decided that because, Hohua had behaved in an extraordinary way and claimed he was not able to remember what he did at the vital time, therefore he must be suffering from a disease of the mind. One examination of Hohua, for 1% hours, was quite inadequate to satisfy his Honour that adequate research or investigation had been done to justify the opinion Dr Medlicott had

reached. If there was to be evidence that Hohua suffered disease of the mind, his Honour said he would have expected much greater testing and examination and inquiry as to what happened at Oakley Hospital. His Honour said he proposed to direct the jury that disease of the mind must have more than a personality disorder coupled with an inadequate intelligence. Ultimately it was a question of fact, to be determined by the juiy. In his summing-up to the jury, his Honour said the case had been a particularly unpleasant one for jurors to listen to. In considering their verdict they must do so dispassionately, without sympathy or ill-will to anybody.

Most of his Honour’s address dealt with the evidence and the law relating to insanity, which was raised as a defence to Hohua’s killing Mrs Dixon.

His Honour said the trial had ended in a quite different way from what it might have seemed at the start, because the real issue was the question of insanity. He traversed at length the defence evidence in relation to this. There was no doubt that Hohua had killed Mrs Dixon, his Honour said. There was no challenge to the fact that he assaulted her, and an assault was an unlawful act. However, there was the evidence of a pathologist that a combination of blows caused Mrs Dixon’s death. If jurors were left in a state of doubt that Hohua knew what he was doing after only two blows had been inflicted, there must be considerable doubt whether it had been shown that the killing was caused by those two blows.

If the jury was satisfied Hohua did know what he was doing, and continued assaulting the woman, clearly a culpable homicide had been committed and the verdict must be manslaughter because Mrs

Dixon was killed by an unlawful act. However, the Crown had contended the killing was murder, which involved Hohua’s knowledge of the likelihood that his acts would cause her death and complete indifference whether or not they caused her death. Referring to the charge of raping Mrs Dixon, his Honour said there could be no question about Mrs Dixon’s consenting because the Crown evidence, as well as Hohua’s, was that she was unconscious at the time of this alleged offence. Nor, if somebody knew what he was doing, could there be the slightest doubt about her consenting. Hohua had admitted having intercourse, but said in evidence that he thought she was dead. His Honour said he was sorry to have to be so brutal about it but in law it was not rape to have intercourse with a corpse. There must be an intention to commit the crime, so that it would not be rape to have intercourse in the last stages of Mrs Dixon’s life, if Hohua believed she was dead. His Honour said the Crown’s case was that Mrs Dixon had lived for up to half an hour after the assault, and that she was alive when sexually assaulted. The possible verdicts the jury could reach in relation to the murder charge were guilty, or not guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty on the ground of insanity. Referring to the two charges of unlawfully entering the flats of Mrs Dixon and her neighbour in Lincoln Road, his Honour said defence counsel had not challenged that Hohua entered both premises intending to commit burglaries.

These charges had been reduced from breaking and entering the flats, during the course of the trial.