TRAGIC HOTEL BRAWL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 5

TRAGIC HOTEL BRAWL.

EX-ALDERMAN SHOT BY

FtiIEND.

INTERVENED TO STOP FIGHT.

"I VOTED FOR HIM."

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 13

Pathetic features are associated with the shooting of a man named Robert Prophett in a hotel brawl at Rcdfern last Saturday.

Prophett, who was an ex-alderman of the Rcdfern Council, was in the hotel bar of a hotel in Rcdfern" and hearing a quarrel he walked over to a small crowd which had gathered round the two men who were engaged in the argument.

Prophett recognised a friend of his, whom he could sec was under the influence of liquor and pushed his way through the crowd in order to quieten him. Before Prophett reached the two disputants, however, they came to blows. Prophett rushed in to separate them and at that moment one of the men drew a revolver and fired almost point blank at the man who was attempting to intercept and separate the contestants in the brawl.

Prophett received the bullet in his stomach and was rushed to South Sydney Hospital, where, after being admitted, he died.

Meanwhile all the occupants of the bar scattered and when the police arrived on the scepe they could not find any trace of the man who had fired the shot at Prophett. They were told, however, that the suspect had rushed from the hotel and flung the revolver on to a shop awning on the opposite side of the street. Almost at the same time as the police were searching in the hotel where the shooting occurred, another party of police were traversing the streets of the district in the police van collecting all the "drunks" from the various hotels. Among the haul of "drunks" was a man who confessed to the police that he had been in a "bit of a shooting-up."

He was questioned further and it was later decided to charge him with the Biurder of Prophett.

When he was informed that he hacl •hot and killed Prophett, the arrested man broke down and sobbed. "Why," he said, "Bob Prophett was one of my best friends. I voted for him at the municipal elections last week." In a statement alleged to have been made by the man, he said that he was attacked by a mnn because of a feud between two families. He was defending himself, he said, when he was struck a blow. He drew the revolver and did not remember any more. He did not see Bob Prophett at the time and only drew the revolver to frighten his assailant.

When he appeared in Court on Monday morning last to face the charge of having murdered Prophett, he presented a sad spectacle. He confessed to the magistrate that he had not slept and •would not eat. He was filled with remorse at his action he said. ■&

The defendant, Thomas Harvey, 28, did not apply for bail and was remanded for a week to enable a coroner's inquiry to be held.