FIFTEEN YEARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21493, 17 May 1933, Page 13

FIFTEEN YEARS

SENTENCE ON CLARK PAPATOETOE SHOOTING DEATH OF A WOMAN COMMENT BY THE JUDGE Fifteen years' imprisonment for the manslaughter of Bertha May Bennett, at Papatoetoe, on January 17, was imposed upon Thomas Francis Clark, labourer, aged 33, when lie appeared for sentence in the Supreme Court yesterday before Mr. Justice Smith. Mrs. Bennett was fatally shot while in bed at her home. Counsel for prisoner, Mr. Northcroft, Said that as the circumstances of the case had/been so fully investigated before His Honor, he would have little to say. He would, however, urge that the jury had taken the view of the defence that the case was one of manslaughter and not of murder; that was, that prisoner did not go to the house with the,prior intention of committing the act, but that, while there, the circumstances had so acted upon him as to bring the tragedy about. The presence of the gun in the house, said counsel, was entirely fortuitous. He would suggest that, upon prisoner's statement to the police and the other circumstances, it was clear that the gun was there by accident, and if it had not been there then there would have been no tragedy. " I would request Your Honor to take into account the extraordinary stress under which he was labouring at the time," said Mr. Northcroft. Prisoner was ignorant of contact with the world, as was shown by his attitude and the conditions ruling in the house at the time. He was young and unsophisticated, and the shock to him of his discovery was greater than it would have been to a normal person. Counsel said he would ask the Court to show the greatest mercy consistent with its duty.

Addressing the prisoner, His fionor 6Jd: —" On the report before me you hare no previous criminal record of any kind. The jury must have taken the view that a contract of marriage existed between yourself and deceased; that when you looked in the bedroom you lost your power of control; and, also, that when you shot the woman you acted on a sudden impulse before your passion had time to cool.

" On the other hand, you went to the house, which put you in a position in which you could commit the act. Human life is not to be taken lightly in this way and I look upon the crime as a very serious one indeed. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned for 15 years with hard labour."