INCIDENT IN HOTEL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21755, 3 July 1945, Page 2

INCIDENT IN HOTEL

DEATH OF FARMER MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE (P.A.) DUNEDIN, July 3. An incident in the Provincial Hotel cn Sunday. June 10. which led to the death of George Henderson Findlay, farmer, of Tuatapere, was the subject of a charge of manslaughter preferred in the City Police Cohrt against John Edward Clare Nicholson,- aged' 21, fruiterer. Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M.. was on the Bench and after hearing the evidence committed the accused for trial at the next sessions of the Supreme Court: In a statement produced by the police, the accused said he had gone to the hotel on the Sunday afternoon to see some friends;:' He -met the deceased in a room with his friends and stayed about an hour Later they went to the private 'bar and when the tea gong went Findlay was asleep. The accused tried to wake him up and he began to spar a bit. At tea the deceased again wakened him. He began to curse and as there were women present at the table the accused got him to his room’. There the deceased began quarrelling again and invited the accused several times to hit him, in the meanwhile calling him some filthy names. In the end the accused struck Findlay and he fell. The accused had no desire to do the deceased,any injury, but he was pretty well worked up by the time he hit him.