AN ECHO OF CROYDON AIR CRASH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17781, 26 February 1926, Page 6

AN ECHO OF CROYDON AIR CRASH.

COURT DECIDES IN ' FAVOUR OF CROWN. By Telegraph.—Pre«s Assn. —Copyright. A us. and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received February 26. 9.15 a.m.) LONDON. February 25. The Probate Court found for the Crown in the Sproston case. The judge held that the wife's father had not substantiated his claim that the husband died first, on which point the doctors expressed different opinions. The case was* an echo of the terrible aeroplane disaster at Croydon on Christmas Eve. 1924. The Crown applied for letters of administration in the estate of Archibald Sproston and for a declaration that he leit no widow. Sproston and his wife and his uncle were killed in the crash. If the wife survived her husband she would have been entitled to his estate, and if Sproston survived his uncle ho would have inherited £SOOO more. The evidence submitted showed that the bodies were all in a heap, and Mrs Sproston was underneath with a deep bone wound in her forehead, resulting in laceration of the lobe of the brain, sufficient to cause instantaneous death. Her husband had a fractured pelvis, which would not necessarily cause immediate death. A doctor, who was on the scene before the flames were subdued, gave evidence that the woman# body was the only one likely to have life, but he found no heartbeats. He could not say who had died first. Another doctor, who had conducted a post-mortem examination, repeated the opinion that he had expressed at the inquest, that the wife had predeceased her husband.