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entirely to the jury I did comment as to whether they did not in
fact think that the incident took place as was originally described
by the prisoner. He confirmed that he dialled 999 for an ambulance,
he said that he was very frightened and confused and he said that
the police who arrived couldn't understand what he was saying and
he said he couldn't remember what he had told them. The prisoner
described how a statement was taken from him at the police station
after he had been arrested and how he made another statement after
he had been charged, he said that at the time he was very confused.
However he was quite adamant that he told the police when he was
giving his statements that his wife had grabbed his scrotum,
however the police disagreed with this, and said that the statements
he had made had been read over to him and that he had signed them
as correct.
The defence was one of provocation; on the other hand
the Crown contended that the only provocation experienced by the
prisoner was that as described in his statements, that is the
threat by his wife to throw away his ancestral tablets, and the
fact that she pinched him, and that such acts on the part of the
deceased did not amount in law to provocation sufficient to roduce
the offence of murder to one of manslaughter. Counsel for the
Crown invited the jury to disbelieve the prisoner's evidence that
he had given in Court, that his wife grabbed his private parts as
he had described.
I directed the jury very carefully as to the law of
provocation, that it was some act or series of acts done by the
deceased to the prisoner which would caused in any reasonable man
and actually caused in the prisoner a sudden and temporary loss
of self-control rendering the prisoner so subjected to passion
as to make him for the moment not the master of his mind.
I also
quoted to the Jury the provisions of Section 4 of the Homicide
Ordinance with regard to provocation, which for ease of reference
I set out below :-