ISLE OF MAN OUTRAGE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1932, Page 9

ISLE OF MAN OUTRAGE

f DRAMATIC STORY IN COURT. SENTENCE ON ACCUSED. John William Collister (38), married, was sentenced at the Manx Assizes, Doug* las, after a two-day trial, to seven years’ penal servitude for the attempted murder of Duncan Fleming, a Glasgow stationer’s assistant, and to five years’ penal servitude for intent to do grievous bodily harm to Irene Livesey, a Rochdale typist, the sentences to run concurrently. Collister in the witness box said he was employed as an inspector on Douglas Head Marine Drive, and on the night of July 23 went with a gun to try and find wild ferrets. He saw a ferret and fired, and then saw the young woman, who called out, “We are shot.’’ A man was with her, and the three of them walked towards the drive. A few yards along the road witness said he stopped 'to uncock his gun and it accidently went off. The man fell into the bracken. Witness stooped to assist him, and the man caught him by the collar. Witness straightened himself and lifted the man to his feet. The man struggled for a few seconds and then let go. Witness never intended to maim or murder either of them, and did not stab Fleming or hammer Miss Livesey in the face with the butt of the gun.

He did not report the matter to the police because he was so terrified he didn’t know what to do. He threw the gun and cartridges into the goree. He did that because he didn’t want to see them again.

The Attorney-General commented on Collister’s statement that when he accidentally shot Miss Livesey, and later when his gun went off and shot Fleming, netiher he nor they said anything. Collister said that after the first shot he was too upset to speak a second time. The man got up instantly and caught him. The Attorney-General: How many times do you have to shoot a man without his saying anything? The Attorney-General pointed out that Fleming had stated that Collister stabbed him with a knife taken from a waistcoat pocXet, and the constable who arrested Collister said on searching him a knife was found in his waistcoat pocket and another In his trousers pocket. Collister said the constable was mistaken. He never carried knives in his waistcoat pocket. He accounted for the presence of three shots in Fleming’s body by suggesting that on his second accidental shot both barrels went off. The Attorney-General made experiments with the gun to show that if a man was uncocking a gun and one barrel went off, the man’s thumb could not slip so as to cause the other barrel to fire. Irene Livesey and Duncan Fleming, the young victims of the shooting affair, have entered suits for damages in the Manx Court for personal injuries. Fleming and the girl were in hospital for several weeks.