MURDER CHARGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23690, 23 December 1938, Page 6

MURDER CHARGE

THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY ACQUITTED

GIRL'S BODY IN SACK CRIMINAL INTENT AS ISSUE (From Oub Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 18. A schoolboy aged 13 appeared before Mr Justice Asquith at the Central Criminal Court charged with the murder of Beryl Ann Oborne, aged four, whose body was found in a sack in a conservatory at the rear of a house near her home at Hazellville road, Upper Holloway, on October 26.; There were two women on the jury, After an absence of one hour and three-quarters the jury found the boy not guilty, and he was discharged. It was stated in evidence that the girl lived with her mother and grandmother. On October 26 she was playing out of doors, and she was missed. The next morning her body was found naked in a sack underneath a pile of attache cases in the conservatory. The child had been gagged and tied up. The boy later made a statement, which Mr G. B. McClure, for the prosecution, submitted was a confession that he killed the little girl. DEFENCE SUBMISSION Sir Bernard Spilsbury said that in his opinion the cause of death was strangulation by a ligature around the neck. There was evidence of interference. , At the close of the case for the prosecution. Mr J. F. Eastwood, K.C., leading counsel for the defence, submitted that there had been no evidence to rebut the presumption that a boy under 14 was incapable of sufficient evil intent to commit a crime. He suggested that there was a question of manslaughter in the case. Mr Justice Asquith: Can you conceive a verdict of manslaughter on this evidence? / ' Mr Eastwood; Yes. While it would clearly be murder in the case of an adult, if the jury were not satisfied that the boy expected death or grievous bodily harm to follow his tying up of the girl, but thought he knew it was an illegal act, then the jury might find a verdict of manslaughter. The judge said he would consult authorities on the question of man-; slaughter, about Which he was a little nuzzled. On the question of rebutting the presumption that the boy was Incapable of discretion, he ruled that the case should go to the jury. A NORMAL BOY The accused boy did not go into the witness box, and no evidence was given for the defence. Mr Eastwood, in his address to the jury, said he had called no evidence because he relied on the lack of evidence by the prosecution to show that the boy was an abnormal boy. Counsel continued:—"A child under eight cannot commit a crime according to our law. From the age of eight to 14 the law assumes that a child cannot have the necessary criminal intention which would justify a jury in finding him guilty of a crime, but evidence of abnormality takes them out of this rule of law." Mr Eastwood said his case was that the boy was normal and came within the rule. He continued that in these days of the kinema one did not know the effect on the infant mind of pictures where the hero, tied up with ropes, escaped at the eleventh hour. Again, said counsel, hundreds of people were searching Into sexual matters, particularly with regard to children. If, he concluded, the prosecution had satisfied the jury that the boy was abnormal they should then consider whether he knew that death or grievous bodily harm must result from his act. If they thought he did not know that, it amounted to a verdict of manslaughter. MANSLAUGHTER RULED OUT

Mr Justice Asquith, summing up, said the case was full of horror, but the jury were spared the horror of knowing that any decision could result in the death penalty. It was practically conceded, said the judge, that if an adult had done what the accused boy was alleged to have done, it would be murder. Had the prosecution satisfied them that the accused boy, under 14, knew that'what he had done was seriously and gravely wrong? The judge commented:—“A lot has been said that he must be shown to be an abnormal boy. That is not quite the way the principle should be applied. as it seems to me. The question is, ‘ Did he know that what he was doing was seriously and' gravely wrong?’ I have been invited to rule there is an alternative—manslaughter. As a matter of law I would direct you that there are no facts in this 1 case which would justify a verdict of manslaughter.” The jury, as stated, after an absence of one hour and three-quarters, found the accused boy not guilty. Before he was discharged, Mr Eastwood said he thought there were powers under the Act of 1933 to deal with this case. Counsel said that the boy, with the approval of his mother, would go back to the remand home whence he had been brought, and. he thought there was sufficient grounds to bring the bov before a juvenile court, where an order could be made for his care and supervision in the future.

Mr Justice Asquith ordered the boy to be discharged.