DEATH FOLLOWS FALL
Hastings Manslaughter Charge CHRISTMAS EVE INCIDENT By Telegraph.—Press Association. Hastings, January 17. The preliminary hearing of a manslaughter charge against Maurice James Brooker, aged 20, who is accused of fatally striking a youth named William George Farquharson while Fiirquharson was in the company of n girl, Nfila Russell Perrin, to whom Brooker had been engaged till a little while previously, was begun at “ asl ’ ings this morning. Mr. J. G. L. Hewitt, S.M., was on the bench, and m. Cecil Duff represented the accused. _ Nola Perrin, aged 18, a shop assistant, gave evidence that she and the deceased were employed iu the same shop. About 10.20 on Christmas Bve she finished work. The deceased accompanied hei nome, and carried iiei parcels. They went through Cornwall Park, aiitl arrived at the gate of her home an hour after .eaving the shop. Thev hail been standing at the gate a few'minutes when the accused Brooker ■ arrived. Thq deceased was then holding witness’s parcels. Brooker struck him under the chin, causing him to'fall on to the concrete footpath. The accused said: “I told you that s what I’d do with anyone who went with you.” Continuing, the witness said that the deceased, who had a wound at the back of his head, was carried unconscious by the accused and her parents into her home. The deceased had no opportunity of defending himself. Earlier in the evening the accused came into the shop and spoke to witness, who thought he was then quite drunk. She had been keeping company with the accused for about two years. Three weeks before Christmas the witness broke off their engagement. She returned the engagement ring a few days before the fatality. Brooker had made threats that he would clean up anyone who paid her attentions. The accused and Farquharson were friendly, though not intimately so. The night of the fatality was the first time that the deceased had accompanied her home after the shop had closed. John Edmund Perrin, father of tae previous witness, stated that the accused appeared to be drunk when he saw him. The deceased recovered consciousness after about half an hour's treatment at witness’s house, and he was then taken home in a friend’s car. Evidence taken in the afternoon set out to show that accused'had drunk a considerable amount of liquor in company witli friends. Deceased’s brother described bow lie was awakened by deceased taking ill during the night. Deceased got up. stumble*’, and fell ot! his bed. His parents were then called and a doctor summoned. Medical evidence by two doctors was to the effect that the actual blow on the chin did not cause Farquharsoifis death. Constable Dunn st?ted that accused told him he did not know whom he’d struck till he saw deceased in Perrin’s house. Constable Craigie said accused told him he was lying on the grass on the other side of the road from Perrin’s house waiting to see who brought the girl home, as he intended to ’‘clean him up.” The defence called no evidence. Accused was committed for trial at the Supreme Court at Napier.
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Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 97, 18 January 1935, Page 11
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522DEATH FOLLOWS FALL Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 97, 18 January 1935, Page 11
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