Name, $
Mr. J. C. Ede.
CAPITAL CASES, 1947-continued
Particulars.
edley, William, &c. --conid.
There were no suflicient grounds for interference with the sentence. No doubt Smedley was fond of the girl, but her comark to him that she had infected him with V.D. can hardly have been a shock amounting to provocation, as he already knew that she had so infected him months before and he still had the disease. The truth seemed to be that he was becoming tired of her demands on him both for money and for sexual satisfaction. Smedley was not of good character and had had nine previous convictions for obscene ant indecent language, stealing, and aiding and abetting acts of indecency.
No Appeal.
Whother
recom- mended
to
Incroy.
463
Decision.
931,582. ibber, Abdul (36).
Birmingham.
21 July, 1947. Atkinson, J.
P. 57206.
Jubber, an Indian, had lived in this country since 1936, and was employed by Morris Motors at Coventry. He was convicted of the murder of Alfred Wagstaff, a plasterer.
On the evening of the 6th June, 1947, Jubber had been beaten up and, he said, robbed by Wagstaff and his friends after they had forced a quarrel on him in a public house. That same evening he made a complaint at a police-station, but the officer taking the complaint did not observe any marks of injury, probably because the interview took place in a partitioned corner where he was unable to see the complainant properly. Jubber did not know the names of his assailants. As a result of the injuries he had received he spent three days in hospital. After his dis- charge he bought a long-bladed knife, and on the 13th June, either by design or accident, he walked into a café just as- Wagstall was leaving it, and a scuffle ensued in which Wagstaff was killed by stab wounds from the knife Jubber had bought a few days before. It was not clear which of the two had started the fight. The post-mortem examina- tion revealed that the deceased man had received ten stab wounds, three of them over vital areas.
and
At the trial no attempt was made to deny that the decensed had met his death at the hands of the prisoner, but the defence sought to secure a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds that he had acted under provocation, that as a result of the previous assault made upon him on the 6th June he was in terror of his safety when attacked on the 13th. The prisoner swore that he had not bought the knife with the intention of using it on Wagstaff and that he had had no idea that Wagstaff was likely to be at the café. He was carrying the knife so that if he were again attacked he could show it to his assailants and drive them off. He said that Wagstaff attacked him with a kuife or razor, which he was forced to drop; in the course of the struggle his own knife fell from his pocket and they both struggled for possession of it; eventually he got hold of it and stabbed Wagstaff in the abdomen. He said he could not remember what happened after that.
In summing up the Judge pointed out that the medical evidence indicated that the knife was being used long before the climax described by the prisoner, and that the real point was whether it was being used from the outset of the struggle or not. If the knife had heen in use from the very outset, there was no question of the provocation being sudden and unexpected. It seemed to him that there was the utmost difficulty in applying provocation in the legal sense of the word. The Jury found the prisoner guilty of murder, adding to their verdict a recom- mendation to mercy. In reporting the case to the Home
Yos.
P.S. for life.
Licence dabe
25-6.56
Dewest 9 years
(C24107-−1)
・
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.