MURDER TRIAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 August 1946, Page 3

MURDER TRIAL

GREASER FOUND GUILTY OF

MANSLAUGHTER-

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, July 31. The trial of James Watson, aged 46, a greaser on the British motor vessel Sussex, on a charge of murdering a Fellow greaser, Peter King, concluded before Mr. Justice Callan to-day. The jury brought in a verdict, of manslaughter, and the accused was remanded for sentence on Monday. The trial lasted three days. Mr. Aekins, opening the defence, said the accused would tell them all he knew, but he was unable to tell them anything of the alleged assault on him, or of the alleged fatal stabbing by him. One of the most distressing things about the case w;as that King was the accused’s best friend on the ship. Watson’s last recollection was of going to the bathroom, and then something seemed to explode in his head. He recollected getting an awful slap in the face, and knew nothing more until he woke up in the ship’s hospital. The accused said that in Baltimore, in 1943, he was hit by a taxicab, and had his head split open. He spent two months in hospital. He had since had to have hospital treatment in Alexandria and Sweden for dizziness. Fie was easily affected by liquor. He had a wife and two children, and he served with the Merchant Navy in the Mediterranean during the war. As he was going to the bathroom he felt strange, and there was something like an explosion that dazed him. He felt cold and then hot water turned on him, but he could not get up. He got an awful slap in the face. The next thing he knew was when he woke up in the ship’s hospital, and wondered where he was. He knew of no reason why he should hurt King.