WIFE’S EVIDENCE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3969, 7 October 1930, Page 2

WIFE’S EVIDENCE

WITNESS AGAINST HUSBAND “ IT WAS SO TERRIBLE.” A wife gave evidence lor the prosecution in a murder charge against her husband at Barnet (Herts) Police Court. The husband was accused of murdering his seven-months-old baby. The wife said her husband had been devoted to hen until tins last baby 7. That was why it seemed so terrible that she had got to go against him. The defending solicitor asked: “ Who told you that you had got to give evidence? in all your experience have you heard of a woman giving evidence again-t her husband on a capital charge? Do you know to-day that you occupy an almost unique position?” The Wife: 1 am sure what he did was not a wilful act. Tho accused man was Siclnos ■Joseph Strand, aged thirty-rive, grocer, of Baron’s Gate, East Barnet. Mrs Mabel Gertrude Strand, the wife, said she found the baoy gasping. She called a neighbour, and a doctor was sent foi. _ “ 1 asked my husband, said Mrs Strand, “ what ho had done, and he said he had taken the bab> by the shoulders and must have shaken it too much. 1 did not question him any further, because 1 was anxious to save tiie baby’s life.’ Mr Vincent. Evans (for the Public Prosecutor) : Has your husband ever threatened the child in any way in front of you ? Mrs Strand: Yes. He has threatened to kill me and the baby. Mrs Strand said that twice her husband had flicked a lighted candle over tiie child. Replying to Air Alfred W. Fryzer (for Strand), Mrs Strand said that her husband had always been a loving father to the other children. Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the Home Office pathologist, said that the child had died from coma caused by Imomorrhage round the brain. This, in his opinion, was caused by violence. Strand was remanded.