MURDER CHARGE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 430, 11 May 1937, Page 6

MURDER CHARGE

YOUNG MAORI ON TRIAL Crown Prosecutor’s Address Press Association —Copyright. . ■ Auckland, May 10. In a clear voice Johnny Toka, a Maori labourer, aged 24, charged with the murder of his father at Patumahoe on February 21, pleaded not guilty when charged at the Supreme Court to.day. A* few seconds after, wards' Toka repeated, “I plead not guilty.” The charge is the outcome of the shooting of an elderly Maori, Toka Whahaia, ias he sat around the fireside with his family. The shot was fired' through the malthoid wall of his whare.

‘‘The facts are simple, and I do not anticipate any dispute about them, fhe real matter you will h'avei to consider, subject to correction from tue (earned judge, is the responsibility, of the accused for his actions, taking into consideration his mental stability,” said Mr V. R. Meredith, Crown Prosecutor. Toka had been an inmate of the Tokanui Mental Hospital from Mlay, 1935, to February, 1936, and' had thus' been released for practically a year. After his discharge Toka had lived with his parents and other members of the family at Pla.tumahoe. There h'ad been a few quarrels among them. Toka had quarrelled with his father when the latter complained of his disinclination to work on the day of the tragedy. There had been a dispute about Toka’s desire to go to- the Pukekohe chow. . He had been advised to go to hospital for a complaint he was suffering from and apparently did not want to go. He was apparently harbouring some resentment about these two things. Mr Meredith then explained hoW the old man, when sitting around' the tire at night, was shot through the wall and how Tok'a immediately afterwards came into the whare with a gun in his- hand. His mother took it from him and then Toka attacked his sister and struck her with a kettle. She lay on the floor feigning death. Toka then took a kettle land struck his father, who was lying on the floor. He afterwards rode over to some neighbouring Maoris and told them he had killed his father and his sister. He asked these Maoris to go over to the whare with him. On the way back Toka was overtaken by the police. To them he admitted he had shot his father. '

Toka had been examined by alienists alter the shooting and on various o.ecaiions sibjee. . The opinion, they would express in evidence would be to. ‘the effect that though Toka knew he was shooting, his mental condition made him incapable of appreciating that what he was doing was wrong. After several witnesses had been heard the hearing was adjourned.