LOVERS’ QUARREL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 186, 27 October 1927, Page 11

LOVERS’ QUARREL

BLOW WITH HAMMER VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY “He spoke to her, and when she did not reply, he struck her on the head with a hammer.” Thus Mr. V. N. ITubble in opening his case against Milroy Thomas Smillie, on charges on assault causing actual bodily harm and of assault, taken before Mr. Justice Rdfed in the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon. The accused met Mrs. Sophie Shepherd on the boat coming back from South Africa and a ripe friendship sprang up between them, said counsel. She informed him that she had left her husband in South Africa and would divorce him and marry the accused. He was a regular visitor at her home in Auckland, where she stayed with her mother. A coolness towards him had arisen. On the day of the alleged' assault, September 7, he was helping her mother to hang pictures. He went to the room where Mrs. Shepherd was, and, following her refusal to answer his questions, he became excited and struck her. The blow caused a scalp wound and she had to go to hospital for a few days. In a statement, the accused said he had suffered a breakdown through worrying over the girl. He always carried a sheath knife. After she “threw him over,” he got desperate and threatened to kill himself. “I did not feel the blow,” said Sophie Shepherd, ‘‘but 1 sank to the floor and then pulled myself up again. The accused seemed terribly sorry for what he had done. He had a knife in his hand, too, and I am not sure whether it was the knife or the hammer with which he hit me.” Cross-examined by Mr. Hall Skelton, who appeared for the accused, witness said Smillie did not hit out at her. He was waving his hands about and she would say the blow was accidental. “How do you account for the fact that he told the police he did it purposely?” asked his Honour. Witness could not say, but “he is a kind, gentlemanly sort,” she replied. *Tt was purely a lovers’ quarrel,” averred Mr; Hall Skelton. An emphatic denial to the statement as read was made by the accused. He said it had been abbreviated and contained things he did not say. He denied absolutely that he said “I got desperate and threatened to kill myself.” He pointed out also that he did not know Mrs. Shepherd was married until after she had been to the hospital. In summing up, his Honour remarked that it would be extraordinarv, if the occurrence were an accident, that it had not been fully explained as such at the time. A verdict of not guilty was returned.