MANSLAUGHTER VERDICT

Evening Star, Issue 20634, 6 November 1930, Page 8

MANSLAUGHTER VERDICT

■ ■-*- THE COLERIDGE SHOOTING CASE [Peu United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, November 5. Tho Lake Coleridge murder trial was hold in the Supreme Court this morning before the Chief Justice (Sir M. Myers), when Alfred James Stanley Colenso, aged thirty-two, a labourer, pleaded not guilty to a charge that, on September 3, ho murdered Robert William Cockburn. Mr Lascelles and Mr Stacey appeared for the prisoner. Most of the evidence heard has been published. The deceased accused Colenso of taking his lunch from the roadside, and after an altercation the shooting occurred. Thomas James Smallwood, gunsmith, eaid the rifle was a .22 calibre Stevens visible loading repeating rifle with a defective magazine. Both the hammer part and the locking gear were defective. The rifle was very light on tho pull. Whereas a pull of three to throe pounds and a-half was normally necessary, this rifle could bo fired with a pull of one pound. A rifle with such a light pull might bo discharged by being knocked on^the'ground. The accused’s rifle was undoubtedly liable to accidental discharge. This closed the Crown’s case, and Mr Lascelles announced that ho would not call evidence for the defence. Mr Lascelles, addressing tho jury, argued that the Crown had not -proved the charge of murder. He contended that if the accused pointed his rifle in self-defence not meaning to cause death ho was justified and entitled to an acquittal. Tho accused used his rifle to defend his own person. The quarrel was not of his own seeking. He was abused, stalked, and cornered by a powerful opponent. In self-defence," physical resistance being useless against such a powerful opponent, he hud recourse to a defective gun. Counsel submitted that death was tbo result of accidental shooting after a quarrel which Cockburn himself bad provoked. His Honour, summing up, said that were he in the jury’s place he would not find tho prisoner guilty of murder. On the question of self-defence there was no evidence of assault, but only of insult. “If you come to a conclusion that there was definitely an assault and that the accused could nob have foreseen his gun going off, you will be justified in acquitting him; but it does not seem to mo That you will have to go a long way before you find that Colenso himself was really guilty of assault when be pointed his gun at tho other main. Frankly, I do not think you are justified in lindjng that Colenso really meant to cause his death. I do not say it would not bo possible for you to find murder, but I do not thing it is safe. I recommend you, therefore, to consider the question of manslaughter. Murder may be reduced to manslaughter if a person commits it in a sudden passion to which he is provoked. If you come to the conclusion that he did it in these circumstances that is manslaughter,” Tlie jury, after forty-five minutes’ deliberation. found Colenso not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, with a recommendation to mercy. Tlio prisoner was sentenced to reformative detention for three years.