POLICE HELD AT BAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 175, 26 July 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

POLICE HELD AT BAY.

TWO MEN SHOT IN A VILLAGE.

MURDER CHARGE AGAINST OLD MAN. An extraordinary scene in the village of Uley, near Dursley, Gloucestershire, when' an old man with a double-barrelled •gun defied 400 villagers for over an hour, while a dead man's body lay at his feet, had a sequel at Dursley Police Court, when John Dolbear (70) was remanded for a week, accused of murdering William Henry Hill (47), a foreman mechanic and smallholder. Hill was shot dead, and his companion, Charles Pitcher, was wounded.

When' the police asked for an immediate remand, Dolbear exclaimed, "Bo you want me to say what I did it for ?"■ "No. Don't 6ay anything now," replied the magistrate. -The tragedy was first seen by Mrs. Hill, wife of the shot man. Her 'husband and Pitcher had just left the house to do some fencing, when she heard three quick shots. Hill clutched his face and collapsed, while Pitcher staggered into the ditch with a groan.

•It was more than an hour before the police, -by a ruse, were able to recover •Hill's body. When they arrived they found themselves threatened by the old man with the gun. The police eventually retired to the back of a cottage on the knoll and the crowd kept shouting to the ■man with the gun while the officers •crept foot bv foot-up the garden where he stood, '"wo of them suddenly made a spring, threw the man down, and wrenched away his gun. As he was being taken away by the police the crowd cried, "Kill him!", and "Lynch him!" .and began to throw stones. The police had to close in to protect him from violence.