MURDER OF CHILD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26635, 4 December 1947, Page 5

MURDER OF CHILD

WINDOW CLEANER PLEADS GUILTY TRIAL LASTS SEVEN MINUTES LONDON, Dec. 2. Frederick Alfred Smith, aged 21, a window cleaner, pleaded guilty at the Surrey Assizes to murdering seven-year-old Eileen Gaff in a wood near Guildford, on July 25. He was sentenced to death. The trial lasted seven minutes. A charge of murdering Eileen’s brother, nine-year-old Leslie, was not heard.

At the opening of the case in Guildford on September 4 the prosecutor •said a search party found the tw« children in the wood. Leslie was dead having been killed by a rifle bullet fired from behind. Eileen was seriv ously injured, and was lying a few feet away. She died in hospital as a result of extensive injuries to the head. Smith, in a statement at the police station after his arrest, described how he first met the children, and they agreed to go shooting later with him. Smith said the affair was an accident. As they were walking through the woods he stumbled and his rifle went off. “ The boy fell forward, and the girl started screaming. Ido not remember what happened after that. 1 must have had a black-out or something. The next thing I knew I saw them both lying on the ground. I hurried away and pushed the gun in some bushes, got my bicycle and ladder, and went and cleaned the windows of a house.”