The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-31 00:00:00

VERDICT OF MANSLAUGHTER.

At the Devon Assizes, on Monday, Francis William West,
Si, was indicted for the wilful murder of his wife, Nanny
West, on the 21st of December last. The case excited the
greatest possible interest, the Court being densely crowded
—a large number of ladies being present.
- - - • -

Mr. Collins, Q C., and Mr. Kekewich prosecuted; Sir
Henry James, Q.C. (specially retained), and Mr. Pitt-Lewis
defended the prisoner.
- - -

Mr. Collins, Q.C., in opening the case, stated that
he should lay before the jury without comment
the facts of case. The prisoner was a gentleman of
Independent means, living at Hazelwood-cottage,
Wear, Gifford, near Torrington. The household con-
sisted of the prisoner and his wife (aged 28), their two
children (aged three years and twelve months respec-
tively), the cook and the nurse. The prisoner had for
some time been given to drink, On December 20 the
nurse went to Torrington in the afternoon,
leaving the prisoner Bober. On her return between
eight and nine, the prisoner and his wife were
in the drawing room, About nine the prisoner
came into the kitchen, where the two servants
were. He then was apparently drunk. He had been
in the habit of coming into the kitchen before, He
smoked a pipe and drew three or four pint jugs of beer,
placing two or three table epeonfuls of rum into one of
them, and drank them himself. He remained there
talking to the servants till 11.50 p.m., when he sent
the nurse for his wife, saying, " I'm afraid she's
lonely." His wife had always refused to accompany
him to the kitchen on previous occasions but on this
night she came. On entering the kitchen she said,
" Well, Frank dear, have you got a seat for me ?"
He replied, "Yes, Nan, there's one. This is the first
time you've sat in the kitchen with me and the girls.
I'll wipe your shoes," (This was explained to mean she
must stand treat.) She said, "I will, Frank," and went
out and returned with a bottle of brandy, which was
opened by the prisoner, and two small glasses poured
out and drank by the servants. Ultimately his wife
went to bed, and was followed to her room imme-
diately by the prisoner. This was a few minutes
after twelve. The servants also then went to their
rooms. The nurse, Mary Knight, slept in the room
next to the prisoner and his wife with the children,
and she sat up dressed for some time, and heard the
prisoner come down and go into a little room
which he called his workshop, in which he kept a rifle
and a pea rifle. She heard him return, and soon after-
wards she heard laughing, and Mrs. West say, "Oh,
Frank." She heard nothing more for half an hour,
when she heard Mrs. West scream twice, "Oh, Frank,
don't." Two seconds afterwards she heard the report of
a gun or pistol, and then all was still. It seems very ex-
traordinary, but she did not call out or raise any alarm,
but undressed and went to sleep, At 3.25 a.m, she
was aroused by hearing the prisoner call her. She
answered him, and on her looking out at the door and
saying she was undressed, he said she need not dress,
and she returned to bed. The prisoner went on to the
cook's room, at the other end of the house, and looked
in, saying, "I am going to draw some beer, and I will
say good-bye to you." He had got an empty tumbler
in his hand and a hand-lamp. The nurse had also seen
him with these, and she also heard him go into the
workshop and lock the dour, Nothing more occurred
till eight a.m. on the Sunday morning, when both the
servants got up and took some tea, as usual, to Mrs.
West's room. They knocked, and getting no answer,
opened the door, which was unlocked, and found the
room dark, and found their mistress sitting in a
chair in a night dress, with her head resting on the
window-sill, quite dead. A rug was thrown over
her, covering all the body except the head. They
went out screaming to the workshop, but, on
knocking, could get no answer. A policeman named
Harvey was sent for, and he also failed at first to get
any answer on knocking at the workshop door, but at
last the prisoner opened the door and looked out and
said, "Is that Harvey?" and asked him to come in.
He did not, but sent for his superintendent, who, on
arriving, told the prisoner to open the workshop door.
He replied he would, but he hoped there would be no
violence. Prisoner was then arrested, and charged
with the murder of his wife, he said, "What can I
say ;it is too late," After he had been taken to
Torrington, he asked, "Is she really dead? It all
seems like a dream to me." The police found the
body in the same state as the servants saw it; a bullet
had cut the muscles of the left arm, which had evi-
dently been put up, and the bullet had then passed
into the neck of the deceased. An empty cartridge
was found near where the deceased was, and a rifle on
the top of a high clothes-press in the room.
Mary Knight was celled and proved what has been
stated generally as above; but as to the screams of
the deceased she said, "I heard her scream, `Oh !
Frank, don't,' more in a laughing tone than a scream.
I then heard something, I do not know what; I
thought it was firearms. I stayed where I was. I
did not call out. I was not undressed. 1 eat by the
fire. I undressed and went to bed and to sleep, being
very tired," The witness also said that the reason
why she did not go to bed when she first went upstairs
was because the children were restless.
In cross-examination this witness said that when
the prisoner became intoxicated his hand shook very
much with a tremulous motion which he could not
control, and he did very foolish things, for which he
oid not seem responsible. There was not the slightest
trace of any quarrel or ill-feeling between the pri-
soner and his wife on the night in question. He was
very affectionate to his children and wife. There was
nothing unusual in the prisoner going to the work-
shop, as a fire was kept there night and day, and no
one else was allowed to go into the room. There was
a swing hammock in there. Preparations for a ser-
vants' party had been made by the prisoner, to take
place on Christmas-eve.
In re-examination she said: "I never saw him
strike her, or scuffles to take place between them ; "
but, on being pressed, she admitted she had said
before the magistrates, "I have heard my master say
to my mistress, 'Go upstairs, or I'll beat you.' He
was drunk then. My mistress had a quick temper.
1 have he,..id quaLras bc.twcen them whe he 'VP' MU
drunk."
ElizaheFh Parr, the cook, was called, and confirmed
the account of what passed in the kitchen, and of
what happened afterwards ; that her bedroom was
s 'me way from the prisoner's; that she thought the
heard the sound of firearms, but, having listened,
hearing nothing mere, she went to sleep again, till she
was awakened by the prisoner, who opened the bed-
room door and said, "You'll get up at six, won't you?
I'm just going to get a glass of beer, and I've come to
say goodbye to you."
In cross-examination she said she did not know
what he meant by telling her to get up at six, but he
seemed drunk at the time.
The policeman Harvey then gave his evidence, the
effect of which has already been given.
Philip Rousham, the superintendent of police, de-
tailed finding the body as described, and his arrest of
the prisoner. He found the left arm of the deceased
ripped up and a circular wound in the left side of the
neck and a large pool of bl oil under the chair. There
was a small Snider rifle on the clothes-press; it was
loaded, and he put it back again. There were some
little drawers on the left of the bed. There were two
loaded cartridges loose in them; the empty cartridge
case was about a foot from the drawers. He pro-
duced the bullet that was in the body, There was a
double gun and a small rifle with a ball cartridge in
it. He admitted that the pull of the rifle (produced)
which he found in the bedroom was very light—almost
a hair trieger.
Mr. Jones, surgeon, stated that death must have
been instantaneous. He made a post mo? Um, examin-
ation on the Monday after the coronsr's jury had
viewed the body. He found a round hole on the inner
side oldeft?y
the left arm. The bullet must have paused
trader the bone, then passed out an I into the neck
completely
the collar-bone on the left side, then backwards,
e exposed windpipe,
the fracturing
spinal the seventh
and
breakingerte vertebra,
head of the first rib on the right ride. He found
the bullet bent into a ring just above the blade-bone
of the shoulder. ire cross-examination, he said he
fthoughtell thelnto
th ed ecche
aaBire.d wSausnsattraonkdeingwwoPuldwhweneaskhen th
e
brain and
e
brain of a man of drunken habits, An uncontrollable
desire to drink might be hereditary. If the two were
combined he would expect a want of responsibility on
the part of the patient, arid almost an absence of
knowledge on his part of what he was doing.
This was the case for the prosecution,
Sir Henry James, in defence, urged that, consider-
ing the affectionate terms on which the deceased and
her husband remained until they retired to their
bedroom, there was nothing from which the jury
could infer malice. It would- be his duty to prove
that the deee sad had inherited a tendency to
drunkenness, that he had suffered sunstroke when
in South America, and had been wounded in the
head by a blow from the sword of e Spanish soldier.
All these causes combined to produce in him after
drinking a mental state in which he would not be fully
conscious of or responsible for his actions. The fact
of the bullet having travelled in an upward direction
showed that it was not fired deliWrately from a gun at
the shoulder, but raised a strong presumption of an
accident.
Witnesses were called to prove the sunstroke and
sabre wound, and two medical men supported the
contentions of counsel as to the effect of Criok upon a
person whose brain had been weakened by the causes
referred to.

His Lordship having summed up, the jury returned
a verdict of "Guilty of Manslaughter."

Baron Pollock expressed his entire concurrence in
the verdict, and passed sentence of eight years' penal
servitude.