BOURNEMOUTH CRIME

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 9

BOURNEMOUTH CRIME

STONER FOUND GUILTY

MRS. RATTENBY ACQUITTED

(Received June 1, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, May 31

After a trial at the Old Bailey lasting five days, George Percy Stoner, aged 19, was found guilty of murdering Francis Mawson' Rattenby, aged 67, a retired architect, on March 24. Mrs. Alma Victoria Rattenby, aged 31, wHo was jointly charged with the murder, had already been acquitted. She showed no emotion whe/t she heard the verdict of her acquittal, but when later the foreman of the jury pronounced Stoner guilty, she swooned.

Stoner did not give evidence.

Mrs. Rattenby, in her evidence, admitted having had relations with Stoner.

"On the afternoon of the day of the murder," she added, "Stoner was jealous. After I had gone to bed Stoner arrived and said lie had hit Rattenby with a mallet.

"I went down to the drawing-room, where I saw my husband collapsed in a chdir."

She denied murdering or planning to murder her husband.

Stoner's counsel urgod that Stoner, who was a war-time baby, was the victim of insane, unreasoning jealousy, due to taking cocaine, which caused him to be in a mental condition in which he lacked sufficient intent to make the crime murder. Counsel urged that the verdict should be "Guilty; but instane."

The jury recommended Stoner to mercy.

In the report of the Police Court hearing it was stated that both the Rattenbys had twice been married, each having children, by both mar-

riages. , i . The prosecution alleged that Mrs. Rattenby and Stoner stayed together in London for four days as brother and sister. Two days after their return to Bournemouth Rattenby was found battered and unconscious in his home and later died in hospital. It was stated that Mrs. Rattenby admitted the attack, and then accused her lover, subsequently signing a statement, in which she said: "My husband dared me to kill him, as he wanted to die."

Stoner, in a statement, said: "I saw her kiss him good-night, and then I crept into the room and hit him while he was asleep."