464
Naiao, &o.
Mr. J. c. Ede
CAPITAL CASES, 1947-continued
Particulars.
Jubber, Abdul, &c.
-contd.
Secretary, Mr. Justice Atkinson said that the defence of provocation rightly failed, but that he thought the Jury meant by their recommendation that the prisoner had been badly beaten up on the 6th June, and though this could not be provocation in law it to some extent afforded an excuse; and that the Jury might also have thought that Wagstaff started the quarrel on the 13th June, and that what was done was done in the heat of passion. An appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal was dismissed.
Jubber was not a man of exemplary character-in 1942 he had been acquitted by a Scottish court of murder on the high seas, the charge being found not proven. He had two previous convictions, one for receiving stolen goods, one for unlawful wounding. But there were sufficient extenuating circumstances to justify effect being given to the recommendation of the Jury. The prisoner had undoubtedly been beaten up by Wagstaff and his friends, and, although he had complained to the police, had received no adequate protection from the law. Consequently he may well have been going about in fear of further assaults, and may-quite wrongly-have thought it was up to him to protect himself. This did not justify his carrying a lethal weapon for the purposes of self- defence, but the provocation he had undergone, though not sufficient in law to reduce the crime to manslaughter, was sufficient to justify a merciful view being taken of the case, and the sentence was respited and commuted to one of Penal Servitude for life.
Appeal dismissed.
Whether
recom. mended
to morcy.
4
Decision,
931,722. Ozanne, James (53). Royal Court of
Guernsey,
28 July, 1947. Bailiff and Jurats.
Ozanne was a man of excellent character who by reason of the death of his wife in 1940 had found himself in the position of having to look after his two young children and do the housekeeping as well as his own work during the difficult times of the German occupation of the Islands. Later, in March, 1947, he arranged for a widow, Mrs. Ogier, and her son to live in the house and assist him, but in June, by reason of the son having obtained employment at a distance, Mrs. Ogier said she must leave in order to be with him. The prospect of a return to his former miserable conditions of life preyed on Ozanne's mind, and he wrote a letter showing that he intended to commit suicide. On the 30th June Mrs. Ogier told him she had found a house, and that evening on his return from work he shot her, but the thought of his young daughter coming home and finding the bodies caused him, he said, to abandon his intention to kill himself also. He went to the police and asked them to remove Mrs. Ogier's body.
The Jurats were unanimous in finding Ozanne guilty of murder, but six of the eleven added to their verdict a recommendation to mercy and the Bailiff associated himself with this recommendation.
The motive for the crime remained obscure. There may have been an element of jealousy of a man named Roberts whom Ozanne mentioned in a letter as being responsible for Mrs. Ogier leaving him, but the murder was clearly the result of extremely acute nervous anxiety, to which the distress of the prisoner and his family during the German occupation may have contributed. The Home/Secretary decided that the recommendation to mereý by a majority of the Jurats must be accepted.
No Appeal.
Yos.
P.S. for lifo.
dirince
dalise
12.4.56 duved
9 years
IPage 46