A GIRL’S DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 60, 2 June 1927, Page 9

A GIRL’S DEATH

CORONER’S CENSURE TAXI-DRIVER FRIEND SOME SCATHING REMARKS TH ERE isn i a man in New Zeaiand who would believe you, i li tell you that!” said the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., this morning, when Hugh Glover, a young married man, disclaimed on oath the responsibiiity for the condition of Doris Jane Reid, a single girl of 23, wno was found dead in bed in a Newmarket boarding-house on May When the inquest re-opened this morning, Glover, who is a taxi-driver, that he had known the girl since January 10, and had been out with her sometimes as often as three times a week. When he learned of her death he went straight to her parents’ home to tell them of it. “I cannot form any idea of the identity of the man who was responsible for her condition,” Glover said. “What were you, a married man, doing out with a single girl three times a week?” asked the coroner severely. Glover denied any improper relations with the girl. Do you ask me to believe that?” asked Mr. Hunt. Glover re-iterated his statement and said that he would swear it. The girl s father, in a further statement, said the only man that he knew his daughter to have kept company with was Hugh Glover. He thought Glover was a single man, until the taxi-driver’s wife came to the house one day. “I told my daughter that she discontinue her acquaintance with Glover. That was the cause of the tiff mentioned in my former evidence.” The boarding-house keeper told the coroner that the girl came to her house on the 2nd or 3rd of May, and gave the name of “Miss Wilson.” “She went out a good deal,” the witness said, “and I did not come in contact with her very much. She had been drinking brandy and gin, but I never saw her intoxicated. On May 12 last she remained in bed, I took her meals into her room to her, but she was an extremely poor eater. She seemed quite ill that day and I wanted to call a but she said ‘No.’ ” At 6.15 that evening the witness found the girl lying across the bed dead. The medical evidence went to show that the death of Miss Reid was due to peritonitis following on an illegal operation. The coroner returned an open verdict accordingly, and told Senior-Detective Hammond to make any further inquiries that he thought fit. “Her death should be laid at you)’ door,” concluded the coroner severely, to Glover, who had not left the witness chair after his emphatic denial.