LIFE SENTENCE FOR NEILING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 16 May 1941, Page 4

LIFE SENTENCE FOR NEILING

FOUND GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER MRS HORTON'S DEATH (United Press Association) Wellington, This Day. After a retirement of four hours and a half, including the tea adjournment of an hour, the jury in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter against Leonard Neiling, brushmaker, aged 29, whose trial for the murder of Marjorie Livingstone Horton began on Monday. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) sentenced Neiling to imprisonment for life. When the jury announced its verdict at 9.8 p.m. and the prisoner was asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed, he said: “I have this to say. lam innocent of the charge.” “I feel.” said prisoner’s senior counsel, Mr W. E. Leicester, “that though the prisoner has made that observation, as counsel for the defence I should say this: The defence feels that what it has been permitted to say throughout the trial is sufficient, with this exception. I feel it is my duty to draw the attention of your Honour to the fact that the evidence shows that defendant was affected, or presumably affected, by liquor at the time the incidents took place.” Upon his Honour asking for information about a conviction for assault on a female recorded against prisoner in 1938, Mr T. P. McCarthy, junior counsel for prisoner who appeared for prisoner on that occasion also, said that a drunken brawl took place in Petone, and during a struggle Miss Rangiwhetu, who had given evidence on the murder charge, was hit. PASSING OF SENTENCE “You have been found guilty of a vile, sordid and brutal offence,” said his Honour to prisoner, “and you have been convicted upon evidence which the jury have regarded as conclusive, and I share that view. They have taken a merciful view of the case in finding you guilty of manslaughter only. I shall not take on myself the responsibility of allowing you to be at large, even after the fairly substantial term that is usually imposed nowadays for the offence of manslaughter. The way in which you knocked this woman about and then raped her—knocked her about in such a way as to cause +vc death—these acts, as I say, constitute a vile and brutal crime. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned and kept at hard labour for life.” After prisoner had left the dock hit Honour explained to the jury that the sentence did not mean that prisoner would remain in prison for life. It would depend on himself. If he could, after a certain period, satisfy the Prisons Board that he was safe to be at large they would act accordingly, but in the meantime he had a duty to protect the public from men of that kind.