KIRKKIRI DROWNING CASE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3162, 14 August 1917, Page 4

KIRKKIRI DROWNING CASE

CHARGES REDUCED TO MANSLAUGHTER. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, August 13. In his charge to the Grand Jury to-da.f the Chief Justice referred to the charge of murder against two boys, pained Ernest Claude Gibbons' ami Richard Roihanaj in connection with tho death of a little girl named Irene JDllen Quinn, aged 6ix, who was drowned on June 19 at Jvirikiri, near Thames, it boinj alleged that one: gr two of the boys forced her into tho stream. His Honour eaid tho law provided that where an offender was under seven, ho was incapable of eommiting crime. In tho case before-, the jury one of the children was seven years nnd four Says old when Hie girl was found in the river, so that had death occurred fivo days earlier he could not have been charged with the crime. The law also provided that in cases where the offender was between seven and fourteen, the onus was on the Oown to show that the offender know his act was wrong. . This aspect of tho case would apply to the Maori boy, who was not nine. Personally ha was not aware that there was anything to lead the jury to the conclusion that the Atonri boy was conscious of wrong. The Grand Jury reduced the charges to manslaughter.