VICTIM OF DELUSION.

Wairarapa Age, 8 February 1927, Page 5

VICTIM OF DELUSION.

PRISONER COMMITS SUICIDE IN HIS CELL. February 7. An inmate of the Paparua Prison, Erie John Barlow, committed suicide in his cell on Saturday by hanging himself. Barlow was seen by a warder in his cell at mid-day, but an hour later, when the warder passed, Barlow was hanging by his waist-belt from the top of the window. He was immediately cut down, and artificial respiration was tried and medical aid summoned, but the man was dead. Barlow was undergoing * three years’ reformative detention for assault and causing bodily harm at Dunedin, having been sentenced bn December 7.

The evidence at the inquest to-day was that the man had previously been in a mental hospital and suffered from a delusion that his health was not good. Actually ho was in good physical health. He told a relative who visited him on Saturday that he would commit suicide, but the relative did not take him seriously, as Barlow had made the same remark before on several occasions. Barlow had never complained of his treatment in prison. The verdict of the Coroner (Mr. Young, S.M.) was that Barlow committed suicide by hanging while temporarily insane.— (P.A.)