ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1944, Page 2

ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGE

EVIDENCE AT LAD’S TRIAL

BLENHEIM, January 19. i The trial of Alan Joseph Pope, , aged 15, charged with attempted i murder of Mrs Rob.ertson, at Ward on October 4 last, was continued todaArthur Gordon Roberts said the accused came to him from the Child Welfare Department last July. His , behaviour-Was excellent. Accused' asked if Roberts would be agreeable to his having his shotgun, but witness refused, as he was under sixteen. Accused experimented with invisible inks. Witness understood I he was corresponding with a friend in the Borstal. Witness identified a wicked-looking spanner as one used for breaking up coal. .Nola Fay McAlpine said accused walked into the Post Office at Ward early on the afternoon of October 4. He asked where the nearest police station was. When informed he said: “Tell them to send a van. There has been murder committed up the road.” She asked who. He replied: “Mrs Robertson.” Witness asked who did it and the accused replied: “I did.” He appeared quite normal. Later, he said he did not know why in the hell he did it. Constable Bourke said the accused declared he had hit Mrs Robertson with a spanner three times. On reaching Robertsons’ home, the police party found Mrs Robertson lying on the floor in the kitchen, gravely wounded about the head. The accused, in reply to a question as to why he committed the act, said he had recently been in trouble in Wellington with another boy who had been sent to Borstal, while he had been sent to Ward, under the care of the Child Welfare Department. The accused admitted taking two pounds of Mrs Robertson’s money. When asked where the spanner was, he replied it was in his room. In this room the police found a parcel of tinned foods. The accused intimated his intention of going south to try to liberate his friend. On the kitchen floor, witness found a bottle similar to the one which Mrs Robertson, in evidence, had identified as having contained oil of Wintergreen. ACCUSED’S STATEMENT In a statement to Detective-Ser-geant Hayhurst, of Nelson, and put in as evidence, accused said that what he did was the result of an agreement with another boy, with whom he had got into trouble in Wellington, that if either should be put into the institution, the other would do his utmost to free him. Last July the friend was sent to Borstal, while Pope was placed by the Child Welfare Officer with Roberts, by whom he was treated like one of the family. Almost immediately, however, Pope began to plan how to get rid of the Roberts household, finally deciding on poison. An attempt to procure potassium cyanide under the pretext that he was interested in entomology failed, but Mrs Robertson lent him a bottle of oil of wintergreen, as he told her he had rheumatism.

Taking advantage of the absence of Mr and Mrs Roberts in Blenheim on October 4, he poured the poison into the soup being prepared for the Roberts’ evening meal, which Mrs Robertson had asked him to give an eye to. However, the scheme was discovered because the odour was so strong that Mrs Robertson smelt it immediately she came back to the kitchen. As neither Mrs Roberts nor Mrs Robertson took soup, he had to cast about for another weapon to silence them, and had decided upon a large spanner used for breaking up coal. This he secured during ' the morning of October 4, and carried about with him awaiting an opportunity to use it. This came after lunch when Mrs Robertson was bending over the refrigerator. He struck her three times and then ran upstairs and stole two £1 notes and some silver from her room. Next he broke oper? the storeroom in the detached house where he slept, and made a parcel of tinned foods, such as condensed milk and spaghetti. He tried to catch Mr Roberts’ hack with the intention of riding towards Picton, and entering a few houses cn the way, thus securing money for the trip south. The horse would not be caught, however, and Pope, realising that he could not get very far on a bicycle, and there being no train until the next clay, decided to give himself up, and rode to the Ward Post Office for that purpose. It had been his intention on reaching Invercargill, to try to smuggle some nitroglycerine, which he knew how io make, to his mate, so that he might blast his way out of the Borstal Before he left Mr Roberts’s house he left a note for him stating that he did not know what made him do what he had done.

Accused pleaded notjguilty and was committed for trial. His counsel, Mr A - A - Mac Nab, intimated that he would like accused examined by a psychiatrist in Wellington.