RIGHT TO KILL.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 43, 21 December 1927, Page 1

RIGHT TO KILL.

TO PREVENT HOPELESS SUFFERING. LONDON, November 2. A verdict of “Not Guilty” was returned at the Assizes at i heater in favor of Albert Edward Davies, of whom Mr Justice Branson had said that his ease was the “heartrending story of a man, driven to distraction by the sufferings of his child, who took upon himself to end his sufferings.” Soon after his discharge from the Army in 1919, Davies married, and he was deeply afflicted by his wife’s death after a"long and painful illness. His sister-in-law offered a home to him and his five young- children, one

of whom, his daughter Elsie, was already an invalid; and Davies, who was employed as a shipyard worker, gave up his leisure to attending- on the little girl with an affectionate devotion of which the most moving evidence was given. In July a complication of disorders rendered her case a hopeless one; and for ten days the father endured the agony of watching her sufferings, to which, he knew, there could be but one end. In the distraction of misery, he formed the resolution to put the child out of pain by putting her in a bath of water, and lie gave himself up to the police in the belief that he had drowned her. In that, the medical evidence showed, he was probably deceived; and the jury accepted the view of the defence that death had been due to shock caused unintentionally when the child was moved. LOVE AND SYMPATHY. Mr Justice Branson said, in his summing up:—“The one thing- that stands above all others is that Davies, if he did take the life of the child, did so only from a motive of love and sympathy for the child’s suffering. ’ ’ In his charge to the Grand Jury the Judge said: “It is a matter which gives food for (bought when one comes to consider that had this poor child been an animal instead of a human being, so far from there being anything blameworthy in the man’s action in putting an end to its suffering, he would actually have been liable to punishment if he had not done so. That is the state of the law’, and we must administer the law.” The jury acquitted Davies of the charge of murder after fifteen minutes’ consideration. FATHER’S STATEMENT. “I felt that I had done nothing wrong,” said Davies, in an interview afterwards. “I felt that I was justified in what had happened. How could any father sit still and see his child suffering-, knowing that it was simply treading- a path of misery and pain to death? “My hoys, Albert, aged seven, and Stanley, aged five, and little Jean, who is three, know nothing- of all this,” he added. “They are beingeared for in a home at Birkenhead. I have not seen them yet. They think I am away at sea, and to-night they have been told that my ship has come home. “I am going to carry out my deception thoroughly. I have bought some little presents, which I am going to take to them in the morning. The children will be told these presents have come from a foreign land with me. On Monday I am going to start a new career.” Discussing this ease, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said: “I think that if there were a law’ that, three medical certificates justify the putting away of any person who is in a hopeless position as regards life and death it would be a very great improvement. It would only be humanity and com-mon-sense.”