SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 86, 5 January 1940, Page 3

SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

Fifteen-Year-Old Boy’s Death (By Telegraph—Press Association.) HAMILTON, Jiinutrry 4. At an inquest today into the death of William Fredrick Laird, aged 15 years, a farm hand, Mr. S. L. Paterson returned a verdict that he died from gunshot wounds self-inflicted. Evidence wife given by the child welfare officer, Mr. E. W. G. Thorpe, that Laird was a ward of the State, being committed at Hastings on breaking and entering charges. He was also before the Hastings Court on September 18,1935, on a charge of theft and was then placed under supervision for two years. He had been in several institutions, most of which he left after making complaints about treatment. He was brier placed on a farm in the Auckland district and was subsequently returned as unsuitable because of his temperament. Witness judged Laird as temperamentally unsuitable in view of' the ntimlter of situations he had had, the temper he bad displayed and the fact that for a period he had in mind taking his own life, as was shown by a letter left just before the shooting. In tliis note Ltrird said he hoped that next time lie would have a better chance and that he had lieen told he would have another six years under the Government welfare officer. Witness denied that he had ever told Laird that he would, be under the e.Tre of the State till he was 21.