SENTENCE REDUCED

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 83, 4 October 1940, Page 9

SENTENCE REDUCED

FIFTEEN YEARS TO FIVE

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE

COOK ISLANDS CASE

The sentence of fifteen years' hard labour imposed by Chief Judge H. F. Ayson in the High Court of the Cook j Islands in August of last year on Tearaia Marsters, of Avatiu, for manslaughter, was reduced by the Full Court today to five years' hard labour, which will be served in New Zealand. Marsters, aged 42, strangled his 23----year-old wife, Tarai, in a struggle on Sunday, July 16, 1939. They had been Imarried just over three months. The assessors at the trial acquitted him on the major charge of murder, and his appeal against the sentence for manslaughter was heard by the Full Court i last week after it had been dismissed by the Court of Appeal for want of jurisdiction. T.he Full Court consisted of the j Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), Mr. ! Justice Blair, Mr. Justice Kennedy, and Mr. Justice Northcroft. The Solicitor-General (Mr. H. H. Cornish, K.C.) conducted the appeal for both the prisoner and the Crown. I Delivering the judgment of the Court, the Chief Justice expressed the Court's indebtedness to the DirectorGeneral of Mental Hospitals for his careful consideration of the matter. "The prisoner,, during the years 1937 and 1938, was employed is an assistant in the engine-room of an auxiliary schooner trading in the Pacific," said his Honour. "Whilst so employed he broke down in health, and in June, 1939, he was admitted to the Rarotonga Hospital suffering from the effects of carbon-monoxide poisoning contracted in the course of his employment, and also from melancholia. He remained in hospital for about five weeks, leaving at his own request on July 13, 1939, to go to his home. On July 16 the offence of manslaughter, the, subject of the charge against him, was committed. He made a statement which was accepted by the police and the High Court as substantially a true account of the circumstances of and immediately preceding the incident that resulted in the death of his wife. WIFE'S THREAT TO LEAVE. "It appears from the statement that he and his wife had a disagreement and that the wife said that he could get someone else to look after him, that she was going to clear out, and that he could lie on the bed and die; that she then apparently proceeded to make preparations to carry put her threat of leaving him —all the time talking about his being useless and no use to live with, and that she was sorry that she had married him. "He says that this made him very angry, that he said, 'Oh! You want me to die, do you?' and that at the same time he put his right hand round her neck and caught her by the throat with his left hand. He also remembers kicking her in the stomach while she was lying in bed and that she fell on the floor. He had on at the time shoes with rubber soles and it does not appear that there were any marks upon her body of the kicks. The evidence shows that her death was due to strangulation. MEDICAL. OPINION. "Medical evidence was called by the prosecution at the trial which is confirmed, and we think amplified, by the Director-General's report? He says that one must inevitably come to the conclusion that the prisoner's case is one of those admittedly rare instances in which residual mental symptoms have resulted from carbon-monoxide poisoning and that in his opinion the prisoner's illness contributed very materially to the tragedy and should be taken into account in the assessment of punishment. The Director-General adds that it would certainly cause the man to be less resistant to provocation.

"Having carefully considered all the aspects of the case we are of opinion that the sentence is excessive and that a sentence of five years would be sufficient to meet the ends of justice, and the sentence is reduced accordingly. In terms of Section 275 of. the Cook Islands Act the Resident Commissioner ordered the prisoner to be transferred to a prison in New Zealand, the intention being that the prisoner should serve the first part of his sentence, probably five years, in the Dominion. The Resident Commissioner's order will continue to apply. That is to say, the sentence as reduced will be served wholly in New Zealand."