Prison term for manslaughter

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 7

Prison term for manslaughter

A Nelson man has been jailed for 5y 2 years for the manslaughter of his estranged wife and the attempted murder of her lover. David Kenneth Davies, aged 31, a domestic purposes beneficiary, was sentenced by Mr Justice Ongley in the High Court at Wellington. Davies had originally been charged with the murder of his wife, Dianne Claire Davies, at her Arrow St, Nelson, home on July 22. However, after a trial in the High Court at Nelson, earlier this month, a jury found him not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. , The jury accepted an element of provocation had existed after hearing

a consultant psychologist testify that Davies was in a dissociated state at the time of the homicide, after being forced to hand over custody of his son, aged three, with whom he had an obsessive, pathological relationship. Davies was found guilty of attempting to murder David John Bannan, who was living in a de-facto relationship with Mrs Davies. Mr Justice Ongley, who presided over the trial, said the jury found Davies had acted under provocation. However the sentences had to be of a deterrent nature because had Davies carried out what he had in mind there would have been two deaths instead of one.