WIFE MURDER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 96, 20 October 1937, Page 8

WIFE MURDER

ACCUSED HELD INSANE

VERDICT OF THE JURY

NOT GUILTY

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, October 19. A verdict of hot guiity on account of insanity was returned by the jury today in the trial before the Supreme Court of Arthur Richardson, labourer, Berwick, for wife murder, Mr. Justice Kennedy presided, Mr. F. B. Adams conducted the case for the Crown, and Mr. O. G. Stevens appeared for the defence. The jury retired late in the afternoon and returned with its verdict after barely 15 minutes. Prisoner j was ordered to be detained in strict custody until the pleasure of the Minister of. Justice was made known. On completion of the Crown's case yesterday, Dr. Malcolm Brown, actingsuperintendent of the Seacliff Mental Hospital, for the defence, said that two months after accused's committal he came under witness's control. He was convalescent.; and under full parole, and was well spoken and conducted. Witness saw Richardson on August 9 last. He was still a sick man and no sign of gross mental disorder could be seen. With the knowledge he had of his mental history he would say it was probable that accused would be committable if he drank heavily. He J had examined him twice weekly since His condition was one of mental enfeeblement following the abuse of alcohol over a long period of years. Richardson had amnesia for crime—in other words, loss of memory for that period. It was not a sharp-cut loss of memory, and it appeared to have come on more or less gradually since the afternoon of July 17. Where it ended was very difficult to say, because his mental condition was complicated by the fact that, after the crime, he was suffering from a severe gunshot wound. Witness was satisfied that the amnesia was genuine and gave it as his opinion that at the time of the. crime he was in a condition of disordered consciousness of such a nature that he would not know the quality of his act. Mr, Adams: Do you consider that at the time he knew what he was doing? —"He would'know the physical quality of his action—that he was putting the gun together and putting cartridges in it." And he would know what he was doing when he took the kitbag and got his gun?—" Yes. He would know in a dreamy sort of way. He would not hqve the knowledge of the act that an ordinary person would have." "After putting the gun together, would he know in the same way that he was taking a cartridge from his pocket and. putting it in the gun?— "He might." In his . summing up, his Honour said that the burdei) of proof of crime was on the Crown, but that was on the assumption that the accused was sane at the time of the alleged offence. The burden of proving insanity in the legal sense, if that were the defence, rested upon the defence. His Honour reviewed the evidence, saying that it had! been shown that the accused did kill his wife, but it remained to be decided whether or not he did mean to kill her. The defence was that at that time he was legally Jnsane and the question to be decided by the jury, if it did agree that the crime itself was committed by the accused beyond all doubt, was not whether the accused was sane or insane in a medical sense at thatttime, not whether he was certifiable or uncertifiable, but whether he was sane or insane in the legal sense. His Honour quoted law and pointed out that in this case there was no question of natural imbecility. He touched upon incidents in accused's previous life which had been produced in evidence and upon the opinions of medical experts and advised the jury that it had three findings open tc it—guilty, not guilty, or not guilty or account of insanity. After a retirement of barely fifteer minutes the jury returned .with a ver< diet of not guilty on account of in sanity. It had found/ that the accusec was insane at the time of the tragedj and declared that it acquitted him or the grounds of insanity. His Honour ordered that the prisonei should be kept in strict custody at th( Paparoa Prison until the pleasure o: the Minister of Justice was mad< known.