MARGATE MURDER

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 112, 8 April 1930, Page 8

MARGATE MURDER

FOX PROTESTS INNOCENCE. LAST-MINUTE PETITION. (United Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright") Received April 8, 1.20 p.m. LONDON, April 7. The undefended divorce case Morse v. Morse and Fox (who is to be executed for murdering his mother) came before Mr Justice Hill to-day. George Morse, who is a ship’s captain, was granted a decree nisi. Fox refused to appeal against his sentence, and also was emphatic that no plea of insanity should be raised. “I do not want to prolong the agony,” wrote Fox to his solicitors. MENTAL INSTABILITY. Received April 8, 1.40 p.m. LONDON, April 7. Sidney Fox, who is to be executed for murdering his mother, is not aware that the divorce action was decided to-day. ' He is still maintaining his innocence. “I shall die an innocent man,” he told a visitor to-day. It was Fox’s own instruction's that there should be no appeal. In a letter to his solicitors lie stated: “I had a fair trial. If it is justice that I die, then there is nothing more to be done. I accept my hard fate.” A last-minute petition for reprieve from the Mission of Intercession has been handed _ in at the Home Office. The petition is based on the grounds of mental instability. Commenting; on the conviction of Fox, the London Daily Mail states that thr»e have only been_ five cases of convictions for matricide in Britain in the last three centuries.