UNUSUAL CHARGES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21184, 3 November 1938, Page 5

UNUSUAL CHARGES

GUILTY ON THREE COUNTS By Telegraph—Press Association WANGANUI, November 1. On the night of July 25 last, residents of Wanganui were startled by the sound of an explosion. It was later discovered by the police that it had occurred in Wanganui East, at the Esplanade, near the old rustic bridge over Nixon Creek. That discovery led to a married man, Charles Neil Neilson, aged 62, appearing in the Supreme Court at Wanganui to-day charged that, with intent to maim, disfigure, or do grievous bodily harm to his wife, Elizabeth Annie Neilson, he laid gelignite amongst bamboo shrubs. He was further charged with the intention of doing bodily harm to his wife by the same act, and, third, with setting a man-trap with intent that it might inflict grievous bodily harm upon any person that came in contact with it. After retiring for three-quarters of an hour, the Jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. Prisoner was remanded for sentence.

Mr Justice Quilliam presided, and the Crown's case was presented by the Crown prosecutor, Mr N. R. Bain. Accused conducted his own defence, cross-examining witnesses and addressing the jury from the box. He again denied a statement made to the police at the Wanganui Police Hospital on July 28. His version of the explosion was that he had been experimenting, had not set a trap for anybody, and that the gelignite went off accidentally, and that he himself was Injured.