Guilty on Three Counts

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 171, 22 July 1939, Page 6

Guilty on Three Counts

CHARGES AGAINST MAORI NOT GUILTY OF ATTEMPTED MURDER Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, July 20. The trial of the Maori labourer. William Pera Paki, aged 26, on a series of charges arising out of happenings at Okaihau on June 16. was completed before Mr Justice Fair and a jury in the Supreme Court. The charges were of attempting to murder his four-year-old son, William George James Paki, doing him actual bodily harm and recklessly driving a motor car so as to have injured him, of the manslaughter of Mrs Annie Evelyn Marsh, and of recklessly driving so as to cause her death and, finally, of attempting suicide. The accused admitted the last charge but pleaded not guilty to all the others. The jury found the accused not guilty of the attempted murder of his son but guilty of reckless driving so as to injure him. They found him guilty also of the manslaughter of Mrs Marsh and of reckless driving so as to cause her death. The accused was remanded for sentence. Evidence for the prosecution showed that shortly after noon on June 16, after a quarrel with his wife, the accused got into a high-powered motor car with his little boy and drove furiously several times up and down the road through Okaihau. The car which the accused was driving smashed into a small car in which were Mrs Marsh and her little girl, and Mrs Marsh received head injuries from which she died. The Crown alleged that Paki, after stopping his car, attempted to kill his little boy. He admitted that he later cut his own throat with a razor. After the evidence for the Crown was finished, Mr Meredith, the Crown Prosecutor, did not address the jury. Answering the charge of attempted murder, Mr. Noble, for the accused, said that many witnesses had testified that Paki was very fond of his child. The whole thing arose from a dispute between him and his wife, and the probabilities were that there was no intention in his mind to do the little boy any injury. No one would suggest that Paki drove into the other car deliberately, and counsel suggested that the jury should find him guilty of negligent driving. His Honour invited the jury to consider the first charge of manslaughter and said that it was not necessary for the Crown to prove deliberate intention. It had to satisfy the jury that Mrs Marsh's death was due to an unlawful act of the accused, namely, driving at an excessive speed dangerous to other users of the highway. He had no doubt that they would find that the evidence established dangerous driving and a really gross breach of the law in this respect. It they were satisfied, his Honour said, that accused did some acts to his boy recklessly and knowing that they were likely to cause his death, then he was guilty of attempted murder. If they did not find him guilty of attempted murder or of doing the boy actual bodily harm, it seemed that they were almost bound to convict him on the third charge of recklessly driving so a 3 to injure hm*