CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 68, 14 December 1918, Page 8

CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER

WOMAN ATTACKED BY HER HUSBAND

VERDICT OF ASSAULT WITH INTENT

Bγ Telegraph.—Pre69 Association. Auckland, December 13. At the Supreme Court John Avondale Arnold was charged with having attempted to murder his wife, Eleanor Freda Arnold, at Alfriston, on the jiight of October C, also with having assaulted her with intent to cause bodily harm, nnd that he had caused actual bodily harm. The third count set out that actual boiKjy harm was caused in such circumstances that if death had ensued the prisoner would have been giiilly. of manslaughter. Mr. Tole, ICC, stated that after a social evening at home, Arnold remarked that he objected to private conversations between his wifo nnd her father, who lived in the house, and on whose farm Arnold was employed. A quarrel ensued, the wife saying she would leave him next day, with the words: "This will be the end." The man sprang at his wifo, caught her by the throat and choked her into unconsciousness. On recovering, the wifo staggered into the bedroom, and' the man, following her again, assaulted the woman, who stated that .she again lost consciousness, but regained it, and opening the window, screamed "Murder!" The man pulled hnr back, pushed her into the "sitting-room, and struck her on the head with something. The next she remembered was finding herself lying near tho cot with her hands bound, while her husband stood at Iho door with a lighted cnndlo and a kerosene tin in hie hands. Twins, four years old. ■were in tho cot, and tho man attempted to set fire to tho bedclothes, his wife, who had released herself, endeavouring to frustrate him. Tho house was burned to the ground. Mrs. Arnold denied that she conversed wilh her father in German, or that her husband objected to his presence. John Henry Hansch, prisoner's father-in-law, emphatically denied that the prisoner ever quarrelled with him on the ground that witness's sympathies were anti-British. He declared , " rant bis (sympathies were British, and he had no relatives interned. Counsel for accused said that nu(|uestionablr accused had committed an nggravfile'd assault, bill; ho had no recolleclion whatever of the occurrence. The assault evidently wus committed in a state of frenzy, and Arnold had no deliberate intention of murdering bis wife. The jury found accused guilty on the eecond count of assault with intent. Sentence was deferred till Monday.