KENYA WOMAN SETTLER

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1934, Page 9

KENYA WOMAN SETTLER

<•> 12 MONTHS FOR KILLING NATIVE NAIROBI, October 7. Mrs Selwyn, widow of a Kenya settler, Major Geoffrey Selwyn, was sentenced to-day to twelve months’ imprisonment for manslaughter, arising out of the death of a. native who was alleged to have been beaten to death. Five natives who were charged with her were sentenced to a month’s imprisonment each. The jury recommended the accused to mercy. The original charge was murder, but the judge suggested that the facts did not amount to murder. The native’s death was alleged to have been caused by a flogging on Major Selwyn’s farm on June 8. Mrs Selwyn, it was alleged, ordered the flogging, and looked on while it was administered. The man died in hospital. Dr Margaret Arnell. giving evidence to-day for the defence, contended that it was unfair to suggest that death was due to beating. She expressed the opinion that the dead man picked up a* poison germ in hospital. She

strongly criticised the hospital’s treatment of the native. Dr Arnell, who was employed in a London hospital during the war, said she was experienced in treating wounds, and had treated many native women who had been beaten by their husbands. She said that an operation for cellulitis should have been performed at once, instead of waiting four days. She thought a daily injection should have been given for blood poisoning. Generally* she considered the treatment incorrect and entirely inadequate, and that ordinary medical skill was not used. The defence counsel took the same line and asked for a complete acquittal. The Attorney-General declared that if settlers took the law into their own hands, there would be a state of anarchy in the colony.—-Reuter and Exchange.'