DEATH FROM BLOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26848, 12 August 1948, Page 6

DEATH FROM BLOW

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE ACCUSED COMMITTED FOR TRIAL P.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 11. Bertrand Alexander, a painter, aged 25, was charged in the Magistrate’s Court to-day that on December 24, 1947, he killed Francis Phillip Minogue by striking him, thereby committing manslaughter. Alexander pleaded not guilty, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M. Bail was allowed. Senior Detective E. H. Compton conducted the' case for. the police, and Mr R. Hardie Boy 9, with him Mr F. H. Walker, appeared for Alexander. Detective Sergeant A. I. Knapp read a statement which he said he had taken from the accused on July 14. In it Alexander stated that on Christmas Eve he had been in a fight in Dixon street with a man over some beer. The fight had been stopped by a constable. Alexander said he had left the man whom he had fought and joined a group of men who were drinking. He said that another man caled him by an insulting name and he struck this man a blow on the left cheek and knocked him out. He and his friend had carried the man across to the alleyway between the Opera House and the Plaza Theatre. They had taken nothing from him. He first realised that the man the police wanted in connection with the death of Minogue might be himself when he read the account of the inquest. Cross-examined by Mr Boys, witness agreed that Minogue came into Alexander’s statement only when Minogue had called Alexander names. Mr Boys contended that a pnma facie case had not been made out by the police. He said that doctors agreed that the blow that killed Minogue was a blow on the temple and not one on the- left side of the jaw. Witnesses had agreed that Minogue had blood on the side of the mouth or marks on the side of his mouth before Alexander struck Minogue. One witness had actually seen Alexander strike Minogue with his fist on the lef; side of the jaw. That had not been the blow that killed Minogue.