NSW: Man found not guilty of lawnmower bomb manslaughter

AAP General News (Australia)
12-14-2009
NSW: Man found not guilty of lawnmower bomb manslaughter

SYDNEY, Dec 14 AAP - One of two friends who built a bomb has been found not guilty
of the manslaughter of a scientist who was killed when the device exploded.

Ashley Glenn Wright, 28, had pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter - by an unlawful
and dangerous act - of Lionel Barry Lowe.

The semi-retired 67-year-old scientist was killed in an explosion just after going
out to mow the lawn at his property at Dural, in Sydney's northwest, in May last year.

Police initially thought the ride-on lawn mower had blown up but later said a home-made
bomb found in a skip on the property was the source of the blast.

On Friday, the NSW District Court jury found Wright not guilty of manslaughter.

On the same day, he pleaded guilty to negligently handling explosives, endangering
life. He will face a sentencing hearing for that offence on January 21.

Mr Lowe's son, Jonathan Burton Lowe, 24, has pleaded guilty to his father's manslaughter
and gave evidence at his friend's trial.

Lowe told the jury a man had commissioned him to make the bomb for $3,000 - a task
he carried out with Wright.

He said Wright had the recipe for making the bomb and they shopped together for the
ingredients before making it.

Lowe also said he had placed the cylinder at the side of Dural house but his father
had found it and asked him what was going on.

"He knew what it was. He just lectured me. He told me how dangerous it was and I needed
to find a job," he told the jury last week.

He said his father had then told him he would take care of the bomb and because his
father was a scientist he assumed he would know what he was doing.

AAP mss/wjf/it/bwl

KEYWORD: WRIGHT

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