KENT MURDER TRIAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 November 1926, Page 5

KENT MURDER TRIAL

JURY ACQUIT HUSBAND.

TENSE SCENES .IN COURT.

Australian and N.Z Cable AssociatiOiA (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright.;

LONDON, November 27. In the case where he was charged with the? murder of Derham, the jtiry found the man, Smith, not guilty of murder, and not guilty of manslaughter. Smith pleaded guilty to being in the possession of a firearm

with intent to endanger his own life. He warn sentenced to a year’s hard labour.

The tension during the hearing of the case before Judge Avory was great, as a cross-examination of Smith dragged detail after detail of the events leading to Derliam’s death. The tension snapped with the dramatic swoon of a woman juror is Sir Marshall Hall read a dramatic letter from Smith to his wife as follows:. “I have been mad lately, and anlin hell now. You have made me sane. won’t leave a stone unturned t,j wipe out the past. I feel like a man who has been in a terrible fever, and has awakened from a deep life — refreshing sleep. Don't throw a lifebelt only td draw it away again! God bless you!”

Smith persisted in answer to a ure of questions.: “I swear I never touched the trigger? I never intended to shoot anyone. I didn’t fire he revolver. I never thtbhtened to kill Derham. I never had mtlider in my heart.” Smith left the box after a threehours’ examination. The gist of his story was that he intended to commit suicide, for which purpose he bought the revolver. A love letter arrived for his wife on 11th of August from Derham. When Smith read it, he felt all his life’s hopes were gone. He wired Derham to visit Stella Maris in order to discuss the situation. In the course of the discussion, Smith suggested that both should leave the woman for three months. She and Derham refused to agree. Thereupon, Smith said he would shoot himself. Derham intercepted him. and the three supped together, Smith again threatened suicide, and he prepared to remove the revolver from his hip pocket, in order to sit down. “I think,” he said, “Derham struck me either the instant that the revolver exploded, or just before.” Sir Marshall Hall contended that Smith had never contemplated murder, and he appealed to the jury to free the prisoner, so that he might catch the lifebelt, and return to a happy life with his wife and children. During his counsel’s address, Smith for the first time showed strong emotion. COMMENTS BY WIVES. LONDON, November 28. A roar of applause, taken up outside the Maidstone Assize Court, greeted the verdict of not guilty of murder and manslaughter, in the case wherein Alfonso Francis Austin Smith, ex-officer of the army, was charged with shooting John Adam Tytler Derham, on August 12, by shooting him with a revolver at Stella Maris, a house in Tankerton, Whitstable. “Oh, how splendid,” cried Mrs. Smith, who daily waited, a pathetic J ’igure in the ante room, occasionally peering through the glass door at her husband in the dock. She added that she had “a wonderful letter from him this morning. It means that we shall be together again.” Mi's Derham, wife of the dead man (of whom it was stated earlier, that Smith had been jealous, and who was shot during’ a struggle between the parties at Stella Maris) said: “I am deeply distressed, but I cannot help feeling grateful that a second life is not to be taken.”

PRISONER’S ANTECEDENTS.

LONDON, November 28. The “Sunday Express” states that Smith’s grandfather was Sir Frank Smith, associated in business in Canada with the late Lord Strathcona. When Smith came of age ho inherited £llO,OOO. He owned racehorses and a luxurious steam yacht, and gave large parties. His widowed mother, who had an income of £lO,OOO, died while Smith was serving in the trenches in France..

He first married Ruth Wynne, daughter of a . former Postmaster? General of the United States. This marriage was dissolved, and Smith then married his present wife, a wartime typiste, whom he met in a lawyer’s office.