WHITE WOMAN FOR TRIAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 September 1934, Page 10

WHITE WOMAN FOR TRIAL

KENYA MURDER CHARGE. NAIROBI, July 28. The magistrate’s court, at Kitale has committed Mrs. Helen Selwyn, widow of a Liverpool man, for trial before the supremo court at Nairobi on u charge of murder following the death of a native after a flogging alleged to have been inflicted on Mrs. Sciwyn’s orders. Five Kuosh natives were committed or. a, similar charge. Mr. Geoffrey Selwyn died from an internal malady while in police custody at the Eldorest Hospital. Mrs. Selwyn was also sent to hospital with heart trouble, from which she is reported not to have completely recovered. She was provided with medical attendance during the court proceedings. At the preliminary hearing the Crown alleged that following the theft of several cowbells from th© Sciwyn’s estate, Mr. Selwyn, accompanied by a group of his employees, set out on the track of tho thieves. Later at th© preliminary magisterial hearing, the Crown alleged that the natives, who were accused of the theft of the cowbells, were taken before * Mrs. Selwyn at her house, and she then instructed that they should be flog--1 ged. She told one of her hous*' boys to do tho beating, it was alleged, while four other employees held down the native. The instrument. stated to have been used as a rubber “kiboko." This broke before the last, man had been beaten, and the houseboy beat him with a strop. It was the native who received this treatment .who died later in hospital. The doctor called in the case testified that the cause of death was exhaustion following septicaemia, due to wounds inflicted on the thighs. Mr. Geoffrey Selwyn, a Liverpool man who emigrated to Kenya, was farming the Friston estate at Kitale. |