re much wiser for the explanation.
After reviewing the evidence for the prosecution at considerable length,
his lordship then proceeded, with judicial impartiality, to state the
case for the defence. The case for the prisoner, he said, was that he
had been strange or eccentric ever since he returned from the front
suffering from shell-shock, that his eccentricity deepened into
homicidal insanity, and that he committed the act of which he stood
charged while suffering under an attack of epilepsy, which produced a
state of mind that led the sufferer to commit an act of violence without
understanding what he was doing. In view of the nature of this defence
the jury were bound to look into the prisoner's family and hereditary
history, and into his own acts before the murder, before coming to a
conclusion as to his state of mind.

The defence, he thought, had proved sufficient to enable the jury to
draw the conclusion that Lady Penreath, the mother of the prisoner, was
an epileptic. The assertion that the prisoner was an epileptic rested
upon the evidence of Sir Henry Durwood, for the evidence of Miss
Willoughby and the family doctor went no further than to suggest a
slight strangeness or departure from the prisoner's usual demeanour. Sir
Henry Durwood, by reason of his professional standing, was entitled to
be received with respect, but he had himself admitted that he had had no
previous opportunity of diagnosing the case of accused, and that it was
difficult to form an exact opinion in a disease like epilepsy. Dr.
Horbury, on the other hand, had declared that the prisoner showed
nothing symptomatic of epilepsy while awaiting remand. In Dr. Horbury's
opinion, he was not an epileptic. Therefore the case resolved itself
into a direct conflict of medical testimony, and it was for the jury to
decide, and form a conclusion as to the man's state of mind in
conjunction with the other evidence.

"The contention for the defence," continued his lordship, leaning
forward and punctuating his words with sharp taps of his fountain pen on
the desk in front of him, "is this: 'Look at this case fairly and
clearly, and you are bound to come to the conclusion that this man is
not in a sound frame of mind.' The prosecution, on the other hand, say,
'The facts of this case do not point to insanity at all, but to
deliberate murder for gain.' The defence urge further, 'You have got to
look at the probabilities. No man in prisoner's position, a ge