WOMEN LEAVE COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1938, Page 12

WOMEN LEAVE COURT

OXFORD ROOF MURDER CHARGE. LONDON, March 1. Many women undergraduates were present in Oxford Police Court, when e. theological student was charged with the murder of a 16-year-old pantry-boy. On a suggestion by the Mayor, Councillor H. S. Rogers, all women spectators left the Court before the case was opened. The accused, John Stanley Phillips, 21, a student of Wycliffe Hall, was remanded in custody for a week. Opening the case for the prosecution. Mr G. R- Paling said that .at 12.15 on February 5 the dead boy, Harold Matthews, was seen to answer the telephone at Wycliffe Hall. From I that time until his body wac found, no person other than his assailant saw him alive.

After a search his naked body was found by Mr Sugden, a student, on the roof, lying in the guttering. Examination by a< doctor showed that death was due to strangulation. There were also ligature marks on the wrists and ankles. Nine wounds on the chest had been inflicted after dea?th. Air Paling said it would appear probable that the boy was knocked out by violence, and that after death his clothes were stripped from him. ALLEGED CONFESSION. On February 6 the police examined the spot where the boy was found; it appeared that the body had been put out. of a corridor window. The corridor was on the top floor of the building. Three students were living on that floor, one of whom was Phillips, who had two rooms. Opposite his rooms were a number of cupboards. On the floor of one was a quantity of blood, suggesting that the body had been placed in that clipboard for some time. The three men living on this floor were interviewed by the police, continued Air Paling. Phillips when told by the Chief Constable, Mr C. R. Fox, that the pantry boy had' been found dead, replied, after a considerable pause: “I had better confess. I am guilty.” The principal of Wycliffe Hall was called in, and after Phillips had conferred with him, Phillips “I ' have nothing else to say. No one assisted me, and it was not premeditated.”

Shortly afterwards Phillips ladded: “I did it about 12.30 yesterday, when I returned from the Post Office.”

Air Paling said that in Phillips’s sitting room was a trunk, at the bottom of which were a number of human bloodstains.

In the bedroom was found a piece of cord Ilin, long, which fitted the marks on the boy’s neck, wrists, and ankles. Some of Phillips’ garments were stained' with human blood. A walking-stick was also stained. Mr Paling suggested that for some reason or other the boy went to Phillips s rooms, and was there murdered;

an attempt was made to put the body into the trunk, and finally it was disposed of on the roof during the night, During the hearing t the accused man’s (father, a clergyman, sat in the vestibule to the Court watching the proceedings through the glass doors.