INQUESTS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21132, 6 April 1934, Page 8

INQUESTS

* DROWNING AT TAYLOR'S MISTAKE The adjourned inquest into the death or James Harry Hessey, aged 22, who was swept off Black Rock, at Taylor's Mistake, on March 25, was held before the coroner, Mr H. A. Young, at the courthouse yesterday. A verdict was returned that Hessey was accidentally drowned through being washed off the rocks by waves. Sergeant R. Henry conducted proceedings for the police. John Albert Hessey said that on March 25 he went with his brother to Taylor's Mistake to inspect a bach they had hired for the Easter holidays. With his brother and a friend, 11. F. Mills, he was standing at the back of a rock known as Black Rock. They were in bathing suits, and had been there for about half an hour. Without warning a large swell broke over the rock. He thought there must have been another breaker just behind it, for it swept over them for such a long time. When witness regained his feet his brother was missing. They saw him again some distance from the rock. He appeared to drift for some distance in a semi-circle, and then sank. He was a fair swimmer. There was nothing that witness or Mills could do. The water was deep, and there was a great deal of kelp about. They were told later that if they had gone into the water they, too, would have been drowned. Henry Francis Mills said that he had been with Hessey and his brother at the time of the accident, and he had subsequently co-operated with the brother in a search for the body. He himself had been knocked over by two large waves which came round the sides and over the top of the rocks in quick succession. He corroborated tho evidence given by the previous witness. Evidence of the finding of the body in a hole among rocks at Taylor's Mistake was given bv John Malcolm Dick. DEATH OF MOTOR-CYCLIST An inquest into Hie death of Gilbert F. Franks, who was killed in a levelcrossing accident at Templeton on Wednesday evening, was opened yesterday afternoon at the Public Hospital before the coroner, Mr 11. A. Young. James Wallace Pearcy, a friend of Franks, gave evidence of identification, and the inquest was adjourned sine die.