MURDER CASE ECHO

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 7

MURDER CASE ECHO

DAVENPORT ESTATE THE VALUATION CONTESTED DOUBLE DEATH DUTY. An echo of the Davenport murder ease was heard in the Te Kuiti Magistrate's Court on Thursday before Mr F. H. Levien, S.M., when the administrator of the estate of Edward Lancashire Davenport, Mr Edward Albert Davenport, appealed against the valuation of the Davenport farm property as made for probate purposes and payment of death duties.

Mr Maekersev, for the administrator, said that as one of the four victims of the murder which took place at Eangitoto on. October 9 survived his father, mother and brother by two days, the estate was thereby caused to pay two lots of death duties amounting to £ISOO. The appeal was laid under section 70 of the Death Duties Act and section 43 of the Land Valuation Act. Counsel pointed out that in appeals against valuations for probate purposes the appellant did not have the right to surrender the land to the Crown for the amount of the valuation. The whole Davenport family were wiped out in the tragedy of October 9 last when a Maori youth killed Mr and Mrs Davenport and their son Albert. Another son, Edward Lancashire Davenport, was found fatally injured and died two days later in the Te Kuiti Hospital without recovering consciousness. Thus the property passed to him and then to his uncle, Albert Edward Davenport, and his aunt, Mrs Jane Stanford. The property _was valued by the district valuer at £5290 and as it was on the market at £4OOO the valuer was induced to reduce his valuation to £4250The sum of £ll7O was duly paid in the estate of G. M. Davenport, deceased. As, however, EdwaTd Lancashire Davenport had died after his father death duties were claimed on his estate also.

The position, said Mr Maekersey, was really that because of the double death duties probate duties would have to be paid on £BSOO in respect of a property which the estate was willing to sell for £2OOO. Mr J. Hine, for the Valuation Department, contended that the valuation was on the property at the death of the owner. It was not conceivable that a valuation accepted on October 9 should be cut in half on October 11, two days later. Evidence for and against the valuation was called and the court reserved its decision.