MANSLAUGHTER VERDICT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27387, 12 May 1950, Page 6

MANSLAUGHTER VERDICT

Brooks Murder Trial ADDRESSES BY COUNSEL PA AUCKLAND, May 11. A verdict of guilty of manslaughter was returned by the jury after a retirement of three hours and threequarters in the trial in which Chesley Lachlan Brooks, aged 20, a seaman and labourer, was charged with murder. Brooks was remanded for sentence by Mr Justice Finlay. The accused was charged with murdering Stanley Frederick Hodson, a bacteriologist at the Rangitaikai Dairy Company, on the main highway at Onepu, near Teteko, on the morning of February 13. During the hearing of the trial,’which lasted four days, the defence claimed that the shooting of Hodson was accidental. The jury retired to consider its verdict at 1 p.m. and returned at 4.45 p.m. About 60 people, including most of the 28 witnesses called by the Crown in the case, waited to hear the verdict, and the public portion of the court was nearly filled as the jury filed into the court There was a tense atmosphere as the foreman answered “ Not guilty ” to the registrar’s question if the jury found Brooks guilty or not guilty of murder and as the foreman went on to say: “ We find him guilty of manslaughter.” Brooks showed no signs of emotion.

Submissions for the defence were made by Mr L. P. Leary in a speech which lasted for more than an hour. It was for the police to prove that Hodgson’s death was not the result of an accident, said Mr Leary. Brooks’s statement to the police was a contradictorv account given in a frightened and extremely nervous condition, but he had been unshaken in his evidence. For the Crown, Mr V. R. Meredith submitted that Brooks’s original statement was true.