A SHOOTING INCIDENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3806, 22 February 1927, Page 48

A SHOOTING INCIDENT.

CHARGE AGAINST FARMER. NEW PLYMOUTH, February 15. Indicted on three serious charges, one of the attempted murder of James Farrelly, near Tangarahau, on November 14, 1926, _ and in addition alternatively with shooting Farrelly so as to cause actual bodily harm, and with causing him actual bodily harm under circumstances which, if the death of Farrelly had ’ resulted, would have rendered accused guilty of manslaughter, Stanley Emerson Carlyle Taylor, farmer, of Tangarahau, came up for trial before Mt Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court to-day. The grand jury returned ‘‘No Bill’’ on the first two counts, and a true bill on the third count. The case arose out of an incident near Taylor’s house in the hill country beyond Tahora. Farrelly, who, it is alleged, had made himself a nuisance in the district by his strange and threatening conduct, called on Taylor one morning, and demanded breakfast. An argument followed, and the affair ended when Taylor borrowed a double-barrelled shotgun from a neighbour, and Farrelly received a full charge in the face. Taylor’s defence is that he had to arm himself with the gun in self-defence, and when he was endeavouring to take Farrelly in charge in order to hand him over to the police the gun accidentally went off. The hearing of the third charge occupied the Court all day, the adjournment being taken after the conclusion of evidence for the defence. •* February 16. At the sitting to-day Taylor was acquitted.