THEFT OF RIFLE ADMITTED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25306, 4 October 1947, Page 2

THEFT OF RIFLE ADMITTED

SHOTS FIRED FROM CATHEDRAL ROOF YOUNG MAN REMANDED FOR SENTENCE (P.A.) DUNEDIN, October 2. The central figure in a series of sensational incidents in Dunedin on September 25, Brian Patrick Michael Ward, aged 24, a painter trainee, appeared in the Magistrate’s Court this morning and pleaded guilty to charges of presenting a rifle at police officers, the theft of a rifle and accessories and other goods, and committing mischief. < The police told the Court that Ward climbed on the roof of the Roman Catholic Cathedral and fired three shots from a heavy-calibre rifle he had stolen. No one was hit, but one bullet smashed through the window of the adjacent convent. Ward then came down from the roof and telephoned the police to say he was the man they were looking for, and asking that they send a plain clothes officer to bring him In. When a sergeant came on the scene Ward covered him with the rifle and told him to return to the station as he had “asked for a plain-clothes man.” Sergeant E. H. Clark telephoned for reinforcements, and when Detective M. Brown arrived Ward also pointed the rifle at him. Detective Brown, however, managed to get the weapon from him, not 'knowing till then that it was unloaded. The police added that Ward had not been at work that day, but had been drinking in hotels. Ward, whose conduct was described by counsel as incomprehensible, was remanded in custody until Monday to enable a medical report to be submitted.