NOT MENTALLY STABLE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 15

NOT MENTALLY STABLE

BUT FAR FROM INSANE THE TRIAL OF H. F.jIUNN HASTINGS SHOOTING CASE (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) NAPIER, 12th June. Sentencing Hubert Frederick Nunn to seven years' reformative detention for attempted murder of Mavis Steelo Smith at Hastings oil 7th April, of which ho waß found guilty in the Supreme Court this afternoon, the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, said that he did not regard the accused as being of stable mentality, but he was. very far from being insance, as laid down by the legal definition. At the same time, his Honour said, human life must be protected, and offences of this type could not be allowed to be committed. He added that he did not intend to inflict a'term "of imprisonment with hard labour, but would sentence the accused to a long period of reformative detention, during which time he would be under observation. 'Mr. E. J. W. Hallett, who appeared for the accused, said that the evidence he had proposed to call would indicate that Nunn was suffering from moral insanity, and not intellectual insanity. His Honour: "I fear^l do not see the difference." MEANT NO HARM. . When the hearing was resumed this morning, Mr. Hallett, continuing the examination of the ; accused, asked: "When did you first realise you had shot Mavis?" '•■■'. The accused: "When I reached home." Mr. Lusk (for the Crown): "Did you say to Miss Smith.that if you could not have her, no one else would?" —"Yes." "What did you mean by that?"—"l did not mean to harm her." . "Did you intend to kill her or to kill any man who separated you?"— "No, I did not mean it that way." His Honour: "But what did you mean?"—" Well, I loved Mavis with all my hearty and it hurt me to know any other man should have her. If I didn't I never intended to harm her." His Honour: "All right, then." Mr. Lusk: "You remember all the details of the conversation, (but do not remember, tho actual shooting?"— "That is so." "Why did you take the gun from the car?'! —"I don't know." "But why did you?"—"I intended to frighten." . • His Honour: "But how frighten her?" —"Not Jtfiss Smith, sir." His Honour: "Then whom did you intend to frighten?"—"l thought she was coming home with another man." Mr. Lusk: "What were you going to do to him?"—"l don't,know. , His Honour: "You-realised when you got home you had shot the girl?"^— "Yes." "Did you not hear her call out, 'Dad, dad'?" —"I don't remember, sir." "You did not take long to get away?"—"No, it would seem I did not take 10n.g." v . : . , "I WAS DAZED." "The police " questioned youl"— : "Yes." : - "And you said, 'I did not shoot her; I may have been instrumental in doing so'!"—-"I. must have said so, I was dazed at the time." "Did you say you did not shoot Miss Smith, and you could say who did, but would not do so just then?"—" Yes." --'/That, ia also what you told.the doctor some' time' later?"—" Yes." "This is the first time you have admitted shooting the girl?"—" That is so." . '' The girl says you bluntly asked her to marry, you that night, and when she said 'No,' you said, 'Then I'll shoot you'?"—"I don't remember saying that to her." "Why did you have the gun?"— "Not to shoot Mavis, sir." "But why have a gun?"—"At the very worst to frighten somebody." ■"Who?"—" Not Mavis. I thought she had come home with another man." "Did yon1 intend to shoot him?" — "No, just frighten him i perhaps." COUNSEL'S SUBMISSION. Addressing the jury, Mr. Hallett said that the act was not premeditated up till midnight. The accused had no intention of. committing any wrong. Nunn was infatuated with the girl, and for a considerable period the infatuation was mutual. Miss Smith was away from Hastings for some time, and when the accused heard she had returned hp went purely to see the girl he was,in love with, and whom'he had not seen for some months. There was nothing sinister about that. He suspected Miss Smith going put with another man. It, was quite probable that he intended to frighten not Miss Smith but the other man. That probably was why he took the gun from the car. He was madly in love with her, and it was highly improbable he would deliberately kill her. Counsel entreated the jury to believe Nunn's story, in which he said h« had no intention, of injuring Miss Smith, and did not recollect what had happened until afterward.

HIS HONOUR'S VIEW. - Summing up, his Honour outlined a simple illustration of a man who had a debt owing to him, and after making representations for payment, threatened to shoot the debtor if it was not paid. When the account was presented later for payment, the debtor, refused to make payment, and he was shot at. Subsequently the creditor said he shot hia debtor, but.did not mean to do it. His Honour contended th.c .present case was practically identical to his illustration. If a defence of that kind was to be accepted, his Honour remarked that 'he was thankful tho responsibility was that of the jury, and not his. There was no doubt that tho accused was infatuated with the girl, and had made a threat which .he had carried into effect. It was not true there was nothing sinister in having a gun in a car, so long as it was left there. Nunn evidently thought l sho was dead and had cleared out shortly afterward. He had written a letter in which he stated he had always vowed no other man would have the girl. When questioned by the polico, there was time for him to have said that h,e did not intend to shoot the girl,.and not merely to have said he did not'do it, but knew who did.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty after forty -minutes' retirement.