THE defence was simple - it was an accident. Thomas Kelly had fallen over a cat while playing cowboys and Indians with a hotelier and his shotgun went off, killing her instantly.

But the furniture porter didn't ring the emergency services. He turned on the gas intent on killing himself and would have succeeded but for the fortuitous arrival of a baker's roundsman making a delivery who dragged him unconscious from near the kitchen boiler.

"Very ill" was the statement released by the medical authorities about the Irishman's condition the following morning as police sat beside his bed in a private ward at the Shanklin cottage hospital waiting to interview him. Within hours they did and unable to accept his version of events, charged him there with murder and attempted suicide.

The death of Ethel Williamson shocked the local community. Well-known and respected in the catering business, she had run a couple of other hotels on the island before becoming joint owner of the three-storey Sandringham Hotel that overlooked the sea at the popular resort where Kelly was a resident. 

She had been running the hotel for three years with her mother before she was blasted in the head and found lying in a pool of blood.

Daily Echo: Sandringham Court Hotel.

Kelly, 43, wept copiously at the opening of his trial at Hampshire Assizes some two months later on March 29, 1954, when he denied both allegations. Much of the prosecution's case was based on a statement he made after his arrest in which he claimed they had been enjoying a game in the deserted building and was drilling her when the gun was accidentally discharged.

"I was fooling with the gun at the time and then I saw her falling. I got the biggest shock of my life and started running around the house. I got frightened and went to gas myself and I don't know any more until I woke up in hospital."

He concluded the statement saying: "I wish they had let me die because she was one of my own."

On being cautioned, he replied: "I want to keep nothing back. I want to hide nothing. She was one of my best friends."

The jury consisting of ten men and two women consulted with each other for almost an hour before clearing Kelly of murder. However, during the hearing, he changed his plea to guilty on the charge of attempted suicide by coal gas poisoning.

Daily Echo: Ethel Williamson

His counsel, Ewen Montagu QC, urged Mr Justice Ormerod to take a lenient view by not passing a prison sentence. "This man is friendless in this country and has nowhere to stay. If Your Lordship could see a way to put him on probation, the probation service of this county will be able to help him and ensure he has somewhere to go tonight." Referring to the weather, he added:" I am most anxious he should not be let loose in these conditions."

The judge agreed. 

Placing him on probation for two years, he told Kelly: "I have had regard to the fact that since January a very serious charge has been hanging over your head. In those circumstances, I do not think it is my duty to inflict any further punishment for this offence."

Afterwards, he was driven away from the court by the county's chief probation officer.