BODY FOUND ON BEACH

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22661, 16 March 1939, Page 4

BODY FOUND ON BEACH

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CORONER RETURNS VERDICT OF DROWNING At 5 o'clock on the morning of New Year’s Day the body of Ernest Nicholas, a painter, aged 40, was found on the beach near the New Brighton pier. .An inquest was completed yesterday at the Courthouse, before Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., Coronef, who returned a verdict of death from drowning. Ernest Albert McGeorge, a nightwatchman, of New Brighton, said that about 2 o’clock on January 1 he was standing on the foreshore near the pier, and saw a man come along Seaview road. The man passed him. and remarked about the weather, then walked on to the beach. Later, witness saw him come up again and walk round the pier building. Then he returned to the beach, and walked underneath the pier. He then seemed to disappear suddenly, and about 20 minutes later witness went to the place at which the man had been standing, and could not find him. He saw footmarks, and followed them for 50 yards to where they had reached the water. Later, about 5 a.m., he saw the man’s body lying face downward in the water on the opposite side of the pier. McGeorge said that the man appeared to be quite sober, but seemed to be down and out, and spoke very ■roughly. He did not suspect that the man wouid do himself any harm. Sergeant John Mclntosh, of New Brighton, who conducted the inquest for the police, gave evidence of his discovery of letters in the clothing of Nicholas. It had since been ascertained that Nicholas had been drinking heavily for about a week before his death, and when he was last seen, on December 31, was in a very shaky condition. When under the influence of liquor he had a mania for walking through water, and frequently did so in rivers while he was employed by the Public Works Department. A verdict was returned that Nicholas was found drowned on the beach at New Brighton, but that there was no evidence of how he came to be ip the sea at New Brighton. -