A SHOCKING CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3043, 13 November 1908, Page 5

A SHOCKING CASE.

CHARGE AGAINST NATIVE

COUPLE.

"RELIGIOUS INSANITY."

By Telegraph —Press Association.

AUCKLAND, November 12

At the Supreme Court to-day Hirini Ngatimo Hohepa and Ema Hirini Ngatimo Hohepo, a young native married couple, were charged with the murder of their 18months old child at Otarao, near Mangakahia, on July 2nd last. The circumstances, said Mr Tole, in his opening remarks, were particularly awful and revolting, and hardly credible as happening in a civilised country. A number of natives, including the two accused and their child, were living together, and on the night in question it appeared that "Timo," as the father of the male accused was oalled, ordered one of his own sons, a child of about six years to go and wash himself, and then to jump on the fire. The boy jumped on the fire, getting considerably burnt and then Timo ordered one of the natives to throw the young child of the accused on the fire. The order was not obeyed, whereupon the old man became enraged, and ordered the female prisoner to put her child on the fire. She began to cry, but upon being urged threw the child on the fire, but it struggled off, and she asked Timo if she should put it back. He replied "Yes," and she did so, but again the child struggled off the fire, screaming in agony. Subsequently it died, and its death was followed by some extraordinary rites. It seemed, said Mr Tole, that some evil influence sometimes affects Maoris, but our code of criminal law recognised nothing save mental unsoundness as extenuation. Fanatic ism, he contended, was a matter of imagination, which did not release a person from responsibility or afford an excuse for crime 30 long as it did not so affect them as to take away their reason. The first witness was a young native woman who said that Timo had declared that the child must die. It was thrown on the fire and wriffgled off several times, being put back every time, the husband exhorting his wife, who wished to save the child, to "be stout-hearted, let it rip." Ema then addressed the child, saying "Go hence, Satan and evildoer," and the child crawled off the fire, but she threw it on again. Three times the child was thrown on the fire, and the third time it died. Timo then suggested a prayer, and one was said. Mekerene Matui Hohepa, a son of Timo, said that in the course of his strange doing Timo had declared, "We must all die, we shall all be burnt with fire," and another time throwing himself down said, "That is how martyrs fall."

The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, recommending the prisoners to mercy on the ground of religious insanity. Sentence was deferred till Monday.