SCENE RE-ENACTED

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 85, 10 April 1935, Page 11

SCENE RE-ENACTED

STRANGE MURDER TRIAL

UNDER OLD GUERNSEY LAW

GRUESOME PROCEDURE

'Jnliod Press Association—By Electric Tele

trrai>b —CoprrUht. (Received April 10, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, April 9.

One of the strangest murder trials iii British history is taking place at Guernsey where the local law enjoins that a purple-robed jury shall debate their verdict in open court in tones audible to all spectators.

Gertrude de la Mare, 27, a housekeeper, accused of cutting the' throat of a farmer employer, Alfred Brouard, 76, and forging his will in her favour, today re-enacted in court the scene of how she found the ' corpse of the deceased who, she .alleged, had committed suicide. A bloodstained bed was placed below the dock and a policeman of a similar build to Brouard lay on the bed. Mare folded his hands and placed the body in a correct position.

The reconstruction of the scene was repeated during the Cross-examination of Mare who looked up from.her rearrangement of the "corpse" calmly to answer questions. The jury had previously ■ visited Brouard's home where the prosecution had the entire case reconstructed for their benefit.

Even fate stepped in to enhance the unusualness of the trial. One out of the eleven jurats, during the height of dramatic evidence, when a barber's dummy of the gashed head, of the victim was being displayed in court, fainted and was carried unconscious into an anteroom-with a heart attack. Nevertheless, with the consent of counsel for the prosecution and defence, the trial may continue with the remaining jurats, as only seven are needed for a quorum.

I Mare was shown the dummy head with the red gash, marked by the Home Office Pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, in order to aid the cross-examina-tion as to whether she believed that such a gash could be self-inflicted.

After four hours' questioning Mare showed signs of fainting and was kindly told by the Judge to take a walk in the fresh air.