THROTTLED HIS WIFE

Evening Star, Issue 23692, 27 September 1940, Page 4

THROTTLED HIS WIFE

COCK ISLANDER'S APPEAL AGAINST SENTENCE EVIDENCE GF MENTAL DETERIORATION [Pea United I’uuss Association. l WELLINGTON, September 26. The hearing by the Full Court today of the appeal of Te Araia Masters u native of Avatiu in the Cook group from a sentence of Id years’ imprisonment imposed for the manslaughter ot his wife, produced the unusual spectacle of the Solicitor-General, who appeared for the Crown, advancing arguments on behalf of the prisoner for a reduction of his sentence.

The prisoner, who is 41 years of age, was married in April. 1939, to Tarai, aged 23, at Rarotonga. Tarai was the mother of a eliild about six years old. who lived with the prisoner and 'iarai at Avatiu. The prisoner was formerly employed on a trading schooner, and from December. 1938. had been unwell from the results of carbon-monoxide poisoning contracted in the engine room of the sehooner. He entered hospital at Rarotonga for treatment cvirly in dune 1939, and was discharged on July 13. On Sunday. .Inly IG. hi* was at home with his wife when otiier members of the family left to go to church. M lien they returned home they found the prisoner acting strangely, but no trace of Tarai. Later, her dead body was found under a bed on which the prisoner was sitting. Subsequently the prisoner made a statement to "the police that an argument had arisen over the church to which Tarai's child was to go, and he had seized his wife by tlie throat and accidentally throttled her. The medical evidence established at the trial before Chief .Judge Ayson at Rarotonga that the prisoner was suffering from carbon-monoxide poisoning which produced melancholia and nervous debility. He wars found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. to he served in New Zealand. The Chief .Judge, however, remarked that if the prisoner proved satisfactory and the circumstances were favourable he might, after live years, he sent back to the Cook Islands to sene the balance of the sentence. From that sentence tlie prisoner appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which is the appellant tribunal for appeals from the Cook Islands.

The prisoner was not represented by counsel, so the Solicitor-General made submissions on bis behalf as well as submissions for the Crown. For the prisoner he submitted that the sentence was excessive, as the evidence established that the prisoner was in a very indefinite state of health when the offence was committed. The effect of carbon-monoxide poisoning was to create small haemorrhages in the brain, putting portions of the brain out of action. Dr Gray, of the Mental Hospitals Department, had examined the prisoner since his arrival in Now Zealand and bad given a report that although the prisoner was not insane, there was definite mental deterioration. On the morning of the tragedy Tarai had boon provoking her husband, and it seemed from the evidence that he temporarily lost control of himself. On the other hand, the SolicitorGeneral pointed ont as counsel for the Crown that the Chief Judge was a man of great experience with Natives, and that he had given every consideration to the matter. His summing-up at the trial was a model of fairness. Moreover, imprisonment in the Cook Islands was more technical than actual, as prisoners there were allowed a considerable amount of liberty. The court, reserved its decision.