NO HARM INTENT

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21245, 16 October 1940, Page 8

NO HARM INTENT

DISCHARGE OF SHOTGUN SON-IN-LAW EXONERATED JURY’S SHORT CONSIDERATION I After a retirement of less than | half-an-hour, the jury returned a j verdict of not guilty in the case in j the Supreme Court, Hamilton, yesterday in which Andrew Cockburn Fergusson, aged 35, storeman, ox iauranga, was charged with discharging a shotgun with intent to do bodily ; harm to his father-in-law, Charles Thomas Mabey, at Tauranga on July 29. Messrs H. T. Gillies and J. R. FitzGerald appeared for the Crown and Mr H. O. Cooney (Te Puke) represented Fergusson. When the evidence was continued yesterday afternoon Samuel Snowden, a neighbour of Mabey, said he l heard two reports which sounded ! like a motor-cycle back-fire. Then ' two of Fergusson’s children came to the door and summoned his help. Witness was followed into Mabey’s home by the two Faulkner brothers. Witness told the accused he would be wise to go to the police station, and on the road Fergusson remarked that no one would ever know what he had been through in the previous few months. Cross-examined, witness referred to the high esteem in which Fergusson had been held in Tauranga. Expert’s Opinion of Shota Joseph Charles Faulkner who also | went to Mabey’s house at the time of the shotgun report, said he heard | Fergusson accuse Mabey of being responsible for all the trouble. Mabey was heard to reply that the accused had brought it all on himself. Senior-Sergeant G. G. Kelly, Arms Advisory Officer, Police Department, Wellington, stated that he could say, ! after examining the empty cartridges 1 found in Mabey’s home, that they i had been fired from the gun carried by Fergusson. He said the gun | could accidentally be fired if caught !in an obstruction. It was not posj sible to say whether the tested cartridges had been fired in that manner or by pressure on the trigger in the normal way. No Intent Proved Mr Cooney claimed that the Crown had failed to prove intent to harm, the basis of the charge. The evidence was consistent with the gun having been caught in a coat and accidently fired. Furthermore, if Fergusson had j intended harm he could have fired i the second barrel at Mabey inside | the house. He made no attempt to I do that. His Honour, in summing up, said ! one would expect that shots aimed deliberately at such close range i would go closer to a man than the evidence showed. If there were ini tention to harm then it was remarkably bad shooting for a man reputed to be a good rifle shot.