CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 119, 13 February 1935, Page 10

CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

Manslaughter Charge as Sequel YOUNG MAN’S DEATH By Telegraph.—Press Association. Hastings, February 12. •As the result of a Christmas tragedy in Hastings involving the death of a young man, Wilfred George Farquharson, another young man, Maurice James Brooker, stood his trial in the Supreme Court, Napier, this morning on a charge of manslaughter. Mr. Justice Smith presided. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of “unlawfully assaulting M’ilfred George Farquharson, causing his death thereby,” with a strong recommendation to mercy on account of the youth of accused. The Crown alleged a young woman, Nola Perrin, had been keeping company with accused, but three months before Christmas the engagement was broken off, aebused subsequently telling her he would “clean up” anyone he saw walking out with her. On Christ- / mas Eve, when accused had been indulging freely in drink, Farquharson carried the girl’s parcels from the shop in which She, worked to her home. M’hile they were talking at Miss Perrin’s gate, accused came on the seen® and struck Farquharson on the jaw, with the result that he fell on a concrete path, receiving injuries from, which he died. “Acted on Spur of Moment.”

Brooker, in the witness box, said he was 20 years of age. After calling at Perrin’s house to leave a present for Miss Perrin he went to a nearby corner where he sat on ihe kerbing, apparently going to sleep. He was awakened by footsteps, and he recognised one of an approaching couple as. Miss Perrin. He aimed a blow at the man’s face.

“I must have acted on the spur of the moment. I cannot say what made me do it,” he said. He did not lie in wait for the couple. To his knowledge he and Miss Perrin were engaged up to the Thursday before Christmas. • The jury returned its verdict in three hours.