MURDER CHARGE FAILS

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1926, Page 9

MURDER CHARGE FAILS

DRAMATIC FINAL SCENES TRIANGULAR LOVE TRAGEDY THIRD PARTY SHOT DEAD By Telegraph—Press Assn —Copyright. Received Nov. 28, 11.5 p.m. London, Nov. 28. A roar of applause taken up outside the Maidstone Assize Court greeted the verdict of not guilty of murder and manslaughter in the case wherein Alfonso Francis Austin Smith, an ex-officer of the army, was charged with shooting John Adam Tytler Derham ( on August 12, by shooting him with a revolver at Stella Maris, a house in Tankerton, Whitstable. “Oh, how splendid!” cried Mrs. Smith, who daily waited, a pathetic figure, in an ante room, occasionally peering through the glass door at her husband in the dock. She added that she had a “wonderful letter from him this morning. It means we shall be together again.” Mrs. Derham, the wife of the dead man (of whom it was stated earlier that Smith had been jealous and who was shot during the struggle between the parties at Stella Maris), said: “I am deeply distressed, but I cannot help feeling grateful that a second life was not taken.” Received Nov. 27, 5.5 p.m. London, Nov. 27. The tension at Judge Avory’s court as the relentless cross-examination of Smith, dragged out detail after detail of the events leading to Derham’s death, snapped with the dramatic swoon of a woman juror as Sir Edward Hall read the following dramatic letter from Smith to his wife:— “I have been mad lately and in hell; now you have made me sane. I won’t leave a stone unturned to wipe out tho past. I feel like a man who has been in a terrible fever and awakened from a deep life.refreshing sleep. Don’t throw a lifebelt to draw it away again. God bless you.” Smith persisted, in answer to a fire of questions: “I swear I never touched the trigger. I never intended to shoot anyone. I didn’t fire the revolver. I never threatened tJ kill Derham. I never had murder in my heart.” Smith left the box after three hours’ examination. The gist of his story was that he intended to commit suicide, for which purpose he bought the revolver. A love letter arrived for his wife on August 11 from Derham. When Smith read it he said he felt that all life’s hope had gone. He wired Derham to visit Stella Maris in order to discuss the situation. In the course of the discussion, Smith suggested that both should leave the woman for three months. She and Derham refused to agree; whereupon Smith sa d he would shoot himself. Derham interceded and the three supped together. Smith again threatened suicide and prepared to remove the revolver from his hip pocket in order to sit down. "I think Derham struck me either on the instant the revolver exploded or just before,” he said. Sir E. Marshall Hall contended that Smith never contemplated murder and appealed to the jury to free the prisoner so that he might catch the lifebelt and return to a happy life with his wife and children.

During counsel’s address Smith for the first time showed strong emotion.