THIRTEEN YEARS IN GAOL

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1931, Page 6

THIRTEEN YEARS IN GAOL

SYDNEY STABBING CASE. VERDICT OF MANSLAUGHTER. At Sydney last week Alfred John Dillon, aged 21, was charged with having murdered Cecil William Bethel McCormack on May 13 last. McCormack died as the resiflt of his having been stabbed with a lawyer’s bodkin in the doorway of a shop. Dillon stated in evidence that he was at his mother’* residence at the time of of the stabbing. He had had no quarrel with McCormack and had not seen him on May 13. When shown the lawyer’s bodkin with which, it was alleged, Mc-

Cormack had been stabbed, Dillon, said he had not seen it before. Mrs. Catherine Scurie, mother of Dillon, speaking with emotion, said: “I have done no harm, and my child has done no harm. Why should I have to suffer judgment like this? If I don’t stand for him, who will? No one—not one.” After a retirement of more than four hour*, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, with a very strong recommendation to mercy. In passing sentence, the judge said: “The jury'have seen fit, and, no doubt, with very good reasons to themselves, to

take a merciful view of this case, and have convicted you on the minor charge of manslaughter. They have also made a recommendation to mercy. I feel that that recommendation should be taken into account, but it seems to me that the circumstances of tho - case do call for a very severe penalty. “I do not think I can reduce the amount of the sentence below a very long term. I did propose to make it slightly higher than I will now do. I will reduce the penalty very slightly, having regard to the recommendation of the jury. The sentence is that you serve 13 years’ penal servitude, to date from May lasSt.”