SHOTS FIRED ON SEWAGE FARM

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26868, 22 October 1952, Page 8

SHOTS FIRED ON SEWAGE FARM

BOARD TO COMPLAIN TO POLICE

The Christchurch Drainage Board will report to the police that rifle shots were fired on the board’s sewage farm at Bromley on the afternoon of October 12.

In a report to a meeting of the board last evening, the superintendent of the farm (Mr J. A. Lynch) described an unsuccessful attempt to apprehend a young man who is believed to have fired the shots. After pursuing the man and two companions, Mr Lyncji said, he found an overcoat and scarf, apparently the property of the shooter. “I am holding the scarf and coat at the farm for the owner to claim,” he said.

Mr Lynch said rifle shots were fired somewhere on the farm about 3.45 p.m. and 4.15 p.m. At 4.35 p.m., another shot was fired very close to where a cricket match was in progress. Mr Lynch immediately left the cricket match, and . saw a young man with a rifle, and two companions. They eluded him after a pursuit across a flooded paddock. The secretary (Mr R. R. Senior) said the shooter had been using a .22 rifle. There were always men and stock on the property, so that it was “a pretty serious matter.” There were notices on the property forbidding trespassing. Requests for permits to shoot on the property during the last six or seven years had been refused.