CLAPHAM COMMON MURDER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 968, 18 March 1911, Page 3

CLAPHAM COMMON MURDER.

MORRISON SKNTKNCKD TO DP ATM. London, March 15. The trial ol Steiner (or Stinie) Morrison, charged with the murder, early on New Year’s Day on Clapham Common, of a French Jew named Leon Beron, was concluded to-day.

Giving evidence regarding the theory that the motive for the crime was political revenge, Inspector Wensley testified that the murdered man had not given information to the police regarding the Houndsditch outrage. The prosecution contended that the accused man had practised burglary, and the instrument that caused Beron's death was probably a jemmy. Mr Justice Darlington, after consultation with counsel, agreed to admit fresh evidence, and a constable stated that the prisoner was definitely charged with the murder when arrested. This the police had hitherto denied. Considerable time was spent on the judge’s searching inquiry into the treatment of Morrison by the police. Constable Greaves gave evidence that he wrote to the accused man’s counsel, in the interests of justice, detailing what had occurred at the police station. Witness had hesitated to speak earlier, as he did not desire to implicate his colleagues. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death was then passed. Morrison s'.ood in the dock with his arms folded and head flung back, and gazed defiantly at the foreman of the jury and the judge. After the delivery of the closing invocation of the sentence —“and may God have mercy on your soul ” —the condemned man exclaimed: “I decline such mercy ! I do not believe there is a God in Heaven.” London, March 16. Constable Greaves, crossexamined, admitted that he had been suspended twice ; the first time for complaining of his sergeant, and the second for making supposed untrue statements to the superintendent. After that he was transferred to another division. Mr Justice Darling, in his summing up, endorsed the jury’s protest against indiscriminate snapshotting of those engaged in a trial. He said it was a far graver matter when people were permitted to photograph prisoners not yet identified by those having testified against them. Such photographs might be seen by possibly uncertain witnesses, inducing them to swear to identification which otherwise they would be unable to do. Morrison had thus been photographed when he had merely been remanded on suspicion. The practice was obviously injurious to the prosecution, and calculated to frustrate the whole ends of justice.