KIRWEE SENSATION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 111, 8 February 1928, Page 10

KIRWEE SENSATION

COURT PROCEEDINGS SEARCH FOR DUNCAN AND CHILD FARM A SCENE OF DESOLATION Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February 7. John Duncan, who was arrested in connection with the Kirwee affair, was told by the Magistrate (Mr. 11. I’. Lawry) during the hearing of his wife’s request for maintenance, separation, and guardianship orders, yesterday, that he was a very poor bluffer. Duncan contended that he was financially embarrassed and that if his agents were to foreclose on him he would have nothing but what he stood up in. His wife told the Court that Duncan had ill-treated the child of her first marriage. Duncan had used bad language to her, the wife said, and had directed a certain filthy epithet towards her at least once a week until his attitude changed and he refused to speak at all. He* had not spoken to her little girl for two years. The child, remembering her ill-usage at his hands, remained in terror of him. During more than two vears of married life, he had bought her (witness) or provided her with the wherewithal to buy, ofily one dress and that had cost five shillings. Duncan said that he had given Ins wife money frequently to buy clothes, but she had never done so. “She went away to town with the money and came home without it, or anything to show for it,” he said. He complained that his wife had taken food from his home and given it to her relatives. Mrs. Duncan said that her husband had questioned and “rowed” about almost everything she bought in the way of food. Argument arose between the Magistrate and Duncan as to whether he (Duncan) had said: ‘ I corrected the child” or “I hit the child.” Duncan denied that he had said that he had hit the child, and it was then that the Magistrate referred to him as “a very poor bluffer.” Mrs. Duncan said that wlifq her husband was sulking (and he sulked for months at a time) her life was very unhappy. Claiming the Child. Mrs. Duncan, accompanied by a relative, left for Kirwee to recover the child immediately after the result of the Court proceedings was known. They arrived at the farm at about 7 p.m. Duncan is alleged to have grabbed a tomahawk and threatened violence if thev did not leave the child with him. Seeing that Duncan was in a dangerous mood, Mrs. Duncan left him. Duncan then paid off his housekeeper and farm hands, and was seen about half an hour after Mrs. Duncan had left driving a gig across a paddock. He took the child with him. Then the house was noticed to be on fire, and later the stacks were seen ablaze. Some time afterwards Duncan’s horse, drawing an empty gig, galloped round to the house from the direction in which the boy was later found drowned. Finding of Duncan. A search party scoured the country tor nearly two hours before Duncan was found. Before Constable Johns, of Darfield, made the arrest Duncan had been hiding in a gorse hedge. He had a deep gash in his arm. Upon being asked where the child was he said that they had taken the boy from him. A search party found the child drowned in a pool beside the fence in which Duncan was hiding before he revealed himself to the constable. Evidence of identification of the boy, aged about two years, was given before the Coroner, Mr. E. D. Mosley, this morning. The inquest was adjourned sine die. Scene of Desolation. The farm was a scene of desolation to-dav, only the chimney stacks remaining of the house, which was near the road, and pieces of twisted corrugated iron marking the place where the stable and implement sheds were. Many tons of chaff wfere destroyed in the burning stable. The only sign of life was the barking of three dogs still chained to their kennels and four pups.