MURDER CHARGE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19140, 25 October 1927, Page 11

MURDER CHARGE.

ACCUSED VICTIM OF TRAGIC . MISFORTUNES. (BT CABIJS—PBBS3 ASSOCIATION— COPTRIOHT). (AUSTRALIA!? AND H.Z, AND SUN CABLE.) LONDON, October 23. With reference to Mr Justice Branson's remarks on the law of murder, the case he commented on was heard before a jury including three women. Prosecuting counsel said that Davis, who was charged with the murder of his child, was a victim of most tragic misfortunes. He enlisted in 1919 at the age of sixteen by giving a false age. He was demobilised in 1919, and married in 1920. He had several children in quick succession, and his wife was invalided. Davis sold the furniture and took over the housework and the care of the children, to whom ho was deeply devoted. His wife developed tuberculosis, and becanio permanently bedridden. She died at childbirth. The child developed septic pneumonia and gangrene of the face following an attack of measles. Davis refused neighbours' assistance, and nursed the child all through the nights. Finally he placed the child in the bath, went to the police station, and said: "I have drowned my baby. She is better off. I could not bear to see her suffering." The medical evidence showed that the child would have died in a few days at the most. Albert Davis, tfie prisoner. is twenty-eight years of age.