MAN TO STAND TRIAL ON CHARGE ALLEGING MANSLAUGHTER

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 March 1947, Page 6

MAN TO STAND TRIAL ON CHARGE ALLEGING MANSLAUGHTER

(P.A.) Wellington, March 5 Charged with the manslaughter oi Alekh Ram, a Hindu, a tram conductor, on February IS, Neville Trevor Lawrence, also a tram conductor, aged 21, appeared before Mr. Goulding, S.M., in the Magistrate s Court to-day. Accused pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. He was represented by Mr. C. H. Arndt. Detective-Sergeant G. C. Callaghan prosecuted. Dr. Francis Harding Sims, assistant pathologist, gave details of a postmortem examination of Ram. He said he had a number of areas ot bruising and lacerations about the face consistent with his having received heavy blows from a fist. There was also a bruise on the back of his head which could have been caused by Ram striking his head on a sharp edge. Death, he said, was due to cerebral haemoirhage. This was more likely to be caused by the blow on the back of the head, although it would be possible for the blows about the face to cause it.

Several witnesses gave evidence oi an altercation between the accused and Ram at the Newtown tram depot when, they stated, blows were struck by both and Ram fell beneath a bench. Subsequently he was removed to hospital.

Mr. Arndt said it was a case in which no jury would convict on a charge of manslaughter. He submitted it was made abundantly clear that the cause of death had been the striking of Ram s head on a sharp object. A large amount of evidence had been pat forward, he said, to show that a real fight had been precipitated when Lawrence was calico a name to which any average man would take exception.