CONVICTION OF THE WAINWRIGHTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 232, 19 February 1876, Page 23

CONVICTION OF THE WAINWRIGHTS.

(From the Pall Mall Budget, Dec. 3.) The trial of Henry and Thomas Wainwright for the murder of Harriet Lane concluded on Wednesday night, after occupying the court for nine days. The case for the prosecution closed early on Saturday morning, and Mr. Besley then addressed the jury on behalf of Henry Wainwright. He argued that the prosecution had failed to prove the identity of the human remains found in the possession of his client as those of Harriet Lane, and he eontended that, if this failed, there was no evidence which would warrant the jury in finding Henry Wainwright guilty on the second count of the indictment, which charges him with the wilful murder of a woman unknown. Mr. Besley suggested a theory of the suicide of a woman brought to despair by the prisoner, and buried by him to avoid exposure. He then called two medical gentlemen, who gave an opinion that the deceased was a person who had not been a mother. Other witnesses were called, who stated that the prisoner Henry had always had the character of a humane and kind-hearted man. On Sunday the jury were, under the care of an officer of the court, taken for a drive to Richmond, and at the opening of the court on Monday morning they expressed their thanks to the Lord Chief Justice and the sheriffs for the arrangements that had been made with a view to their comfort. Mr. Besley then summed up the case on behalf of Henry Wainwright, and contended that his client was entitled to a verdict of not guilty if one link in the chain of evidence for the prosecution was incomplete. Mr. Moody afterwards addressed the jury on behalf of Thomas Wainwright. He argued that the offence of murder had not been committed, and that, even supposing the jury should think the fact of a murder had been established, it was not proved that his client was an accessory. He asked them to reject the theory of the prosecution, and to say that whatever the prisoner had done he had no guilty knowledge. Thomas was unhappy in his domestic relations, and had been " wanted" by the police for neglecting his wife—a charge upon which he was dismissed by the magistrate. As he had no fixed home, it was impossible for him to say after an interval of 12 or 18 months where he was on any particular evening. The learned counsel said he could not, therefore, prove a complete alibi; but he produced evidence that in September, 1874, Thomas Wainwright was in regular attendance at the place where he was employed. The Attorney-General occupied the whole of Tuesday's sitting with his reply on the part of the prosecution. The theory of suicide set up for the defence was, he argued, utterly untenable. It had been proved beyond question that there were two bullets in the brain, and that all the vessels in the throat had been severed by a cut immediately before or immediately after death. Whichever of these injuries caused death, neither of them could have been setf-inflicted, and it was an outrage upon the common sense of the jury to ask them to

asgume that the woman committed suicide. He contended that the facts showed that Henry had a motive for wishing to get rid of the woman Lane, and that all the circumstances must convince every reasonable mdn that he was guilty of murdering her. With respect to Thomas Wainwright, he submitted that the evidence showed that he had lent himself to a plot instituted by his brother for the woman's removal, and he argued that there was strong reason for the presumption that the body of the murdered woman was not cut up and packed by Henry alone. There was also the fact that the body was being removed by Henry when he was arrested to a house then in the occupation of his brother Thomas. The Lord Chief Justice's summing up on Wednesday occupied nearly five hours. Starting from the fact of a mutilated body being found in Henry Wainwright's possession on the 11th of last September, the learned. Judge retraced his steps, and carefully followed through all its stages the connection which subsisted between _ Harriet Lane and the prisoner Henry Wainwright. He pointed ,-out that the importunity of the unhappy woman, coupled with his own pecuniary . embarassments, supplied the motive for the prisoner desiring to put her out of the way. As regarded the Frieake episode, the Lord Chief Justice thought it was not necessary to adopt the theory put forward by the prosecution, that the appearance of the socalled Edward Frieake upon the scene was the beginning of a scheme which had for its end the destruction of Harriet Lane. He inclined to the hypothesis put forth by Thomas Wainwright's counsel, that the prisoner Henry really intended to make a provision for the woman, and introduced his brother in the name of Frieake as a guarantee that he meant to keep to his engagements. Upon the question of identification, his lordship submitted to the jury whether the prosecution had not proved that the body was that of Harriet Lane. If it was not, why had not Henry stated the reason of his removing the body of a woman unknown ? Although by our law we could not interrogate a man charged with an offence, nor could he offer on oath evidence which might tell in his favor, he might call witnesses, and give explanations through them. As far as the prisoner Thomas was concerned, the Lord Chief Justice submitted to the jury whether his conduct in helping to deceive the relatives of the murdered woman might not have been prompted by a desire to get his brother out of a scrape, and without his having any knowledge of the murder. The jury, after consulting together for nearly an hour, found Henry Wainwright guilty of the wilful murder of Harriet Lane, and Thomas Wainwright guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Henry Wainwright, on the usual question being ptit to him, said : —"Standing, as I now do, on the brink of eternity, in the presence of that God before whom I am shortly to appear, I swear I am not the murderer of the remains found in my possession. I swear I have never in my life fired a pistol. I swear, also, I did not bury those remains. The proof that I did not exhume or mutilate them has been given by witnesses. I have been guilty of a great immorality; I have been guilty of many indiscretions ; but of the crime of which the jury have brought me in guilty, I leave this dock with a calm and a quiet conscience." The Lord Chief Justice expressed his regret at the "rash assertion" which the prisoner had made, for he thought that no one who had heard the trial could entertain the shadow of a doubt of the prisoner having committed a barbarous, cruel, inhuman, and cowardly act. His lordship then pronounced sentence of death in the usual form, and warned the prisoner against any expectation of mercy. Thomas Wainwright was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude ; and the Lord Chief Justice ordered a reward of £3O to be given to the witness Stokes, in recognition of his prompt and praiseworthy conduct, which led to the discovery of the crime. In reply to a communication from the Home Secretary, the Lord Chief Justice has expressed his opinion that the conviction of Henry Wainwright for the wilful murder of Harriet Lane was quite justified by the evidence ; and he sees no ground why the law should not take its course.

The Times of December 18 says : —" It is stated that the condemned prisoner Henry Wainwright, since he has been in Newgate has chiefly spent his time in writing, having been busily engaged in writing an autobiography. The manuscript he intends to present to his wife, as the only legacy he can leave her. It is intimated that the work will contain a full account of his early career, and a full and reliable statement of his part in the late terrible tragedy. He takes every precaution to prevent even the warders who are in attendance in his cell night and day from seeing the contents of the manuscript, which at night he securely rolls up and places under his pillow, and when, in the daytime, he has to leave the writing-table for an airing in the yard, he carries the manuscript in his pocket. At night he is restless and wakeful, but in no circumstances whatever would there be any attempt to pry into his secret. In fact, so stringent are the prison regulations that, though either the governor, or ordinary, or some warder is present whenever he has any interview with his friends, yet all conversation which is held is ordered to be looked upon as confidential and inviolate."