CLERK SHOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 172, 24 July 1933, Page 8

CLERK SHOT.

NOW IN HOSPITAL.

RAILWAY STATION AFFAIR.

POLICE BAFFLED BY MOTIVE.

(By Telegraph —I'rcss Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day,

Leonard Arthur Lee, aged 39, married, a railway clerk, was shot through the jaw by an unknown masked assailant at the Addington railway station last evening. He is in hospital and his condition to-day is satisfactory. No money was stolen and there is no clue as to the perpetration of the crime. The assailant decamped after firing a rifle through the ticket oflice window.

Interviewed in hospital to-day, Lee said he was alone in the station at 0.45 p.m., when he heard a knock at the shutter of the ticket office, and he went to answer it. At lie flung up the shutter and bent to answer the knocking he caught a glimpse of a man with a rifle uplifted. There was a shot and lie staggered back with blood pouring from his face. There was a sound of running fact, Lee added, but by the time lie managed to get to the door there was 110 one 111 sight and he was too weak to make immediate search. He called for help and was found shortly afterwards by two men. There was no sign of the man with the rifle. Lee says he knows 110 reason why he should be shot at, and lie attributes the incident either to the act of a madman or a bungling thief who was frighu-jied off by his cries for help. He knows no man who would w it'll to do him such grievous injury. It was his regular poet 011 this particular Sunday, and there was 110 likelihood of any other official being 011 the premises. "I cannot understand it," Lee said. The police at present are equally at a loss. Robbery was a very unlikely motive, they state, as anyone would : know there was little money about the railway station 011 a Sunday evening. I In fact, the sum on the pi eiuises was! not more than £4. In any case, the | method followed by the shooter was hardly that of a man who intended to rob the station. The police feel that the whole affair is inexplicable. Interviewed by detectives, Lee r-aid his assailant was a young man, about sft (iin in height, and wearing a felt hat with the lower part of his face covered by a handkerchief. Detectives to-day are continuing their investigations. The bullet entered Lee's chin beneath the lower lip 011 the right side, lodgipg' in the neck without touching an artery. I