CONVICTION QUASHED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18674, 6 April 1935, Page 6

CONVICTION QUASHED

ALLEGED MURDERER

HOUSE OF LORDS’ -DECISION

UNPRECEDENTED ACTION

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received April C, 2 p.m.) LONDON, April’s.

After being twice tried, owing to the (irsl .jury disagreeing, being sentenced to death, and the hearing of a subsequent appeal dismissed, Reginald Woolmington, a 21-year-old Somersetshire farmhand, accused of murdering his 18-ycnr-old wife, was to-day freed by the House of Lords, who thereby unprecedentedly allowed an appeal against a death sentence. Woolmington was married in August, a child was born in October, and his wife returned to her parents in November. She was shot dead in December. - Woolmington. in evidence at (lie assizes, said he took a gun pretending to shoot hi in self when his wife refused to return to him. The gun, which had a hair-trigger, went off accidentally. The Attorney-General, after an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal had failed, sanctioned a Mouse of Lords appeal on the ground that a point of law of exceptional public importance was involved in* connection with the incidence of the burden of proof in a number of cases. Woolmington counsel, in the House of Lords, contended that Mr Justice Swift misdirected the jury,’ saying that the onus of proving that the shooting was accidental was on the defence. On the contrary, the burden lay on the Crown to prove intent. Lord Sankey said the conviction would be quashed, and the reasons would be given later.