POKENO STABBING CASE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 1, Issue 70, 21 February 1913, Page 1

POKENO STABBING CASE.

— Three Years' Imprisonment. The case of John Morgan O'Brien, for stubbiug Thomas Peter Smith at Pokeno in December last, was heard before Mr Justice Edwards in the Auckland Supreme Court on Tuesday. The particulars were fully reported in the " Times " when the case was before the Magistrate's Court in Pukekohe. " I lost my braces that morning, too," said O'Brien, in the Supreme Court when pleading not guilty to the charge of having done grevious bodily harm to Smith O'Brien and Smith had an argument on the morning of December 14th. They were working together on a larm, and various little happenings so annoyed each of them tiiat things became unpleasant all round. Smith referred to O'Brien as a fit and proper person to be an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and O'Brien said Smith was one too, only worse. Then the blows came. O'Brien had a knife in his hand, and Smith emerged from the scuffle with sevelal wounds, one in the region of the abdomen and others on the legs. Mr Endean, who appeared for prisoner, pleaded that the wounds were inflicted accidentally, as accused did not at the time realise that he had the knife in his hand. The jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment with hard i labour.