Statement Read In Manslaughter Case

Press, Volume C, Issue 29510, 11 May 1961, Page 21

Statement Read In Manslaughter Case

(Kew Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 10. Counsel will address the jury and Mr Justice Turner will sum up tomorrow in the trial of Trig Johnson, aged 28, a farmhand, and his seven-year-old son, Walter Himiona Johnson, who are jointly charged with the manslaughter of Trig .William Johnson, aged six, at Matakana, on January 28. Trig Johnson is also charged that with intent to do grievous bodily harm to Trig William Johnson he did cause actual bodily haras- , Trig Johnson and JUgJfUel Stella Rai ha 23. are jointly between WW, and January 28, 1961, being persons having custody of a child under the age of 14, they wilfully neglected or exposed Trig William Johnson in a manner likely to cause injury to his health. Constable J. W. Hodgson produced a written statement allegedly made by Trig Johnson.

In ft he said that on January 28 he and his wife went to Warkwwth and "Wally" waa left in charge ot the three other children.

They returned home about 430 pm. He was under the influence of liquor but his wife was not so bad. He went to sleep on his bed and was wakened by Ron Hepata. who a-ked him what was wrong with the deceased. He went outside and saw the boy was bruised.

Johnson is alleged to have said that on the Friday the two brothers were fighting and Walter was hitting the deceased with a stick. He told them to "eut it out.” On the Saturday night accused said he woke up and looked at the children. The appearance of deceased gave him a shock. He telephoned Dr. Cross. The boy appeared to be unconscious so he applied mouth-to-mouth respiration. Mrs Johnsen's Statement Detective Norman Herbert Hardy, said that on Sunday, January 29, he took a statement from Mrs Johnson. She said that on the Saturday after she and Walter returned from doing the milking she saw three men and a pakeha taxi-driver in the yard. Her husband came running out

and told them to get off the place after one of the men asked what had happened to Trig. She told all the .people to get off the place.

Later she saw deceased setting the table and Walter was hitting him. She asked deceased where the fish was and he said it was on the bench. She hit him. Accused is alleged to have said that she did not stop Walter from hitting deceased. Neither did her husband, who was sitting in a chair. . Dr. Alice Mary Bush, child .specialist, said she found Walter Johnson to be a well-built Maori boy Wit-h no evidence of disease JURA having the outward apjparance of normal intelligence for his age. He told her he would box with his brother. “When I box with my brother my father tells me to break it up.” witness said the accused told her. She said she observed the accused in the Magistrate’s Court and he struck her as a particularly well-behaved child. She thought he was a child who would do what he was told.

Witness did not think a seven-and-a-half year old child would understand that he might kill someone by hitting him with a stick. What a child of that age understood about those things varied with Individual circumstances and with the child’s own experience.