MAN’S IDENTITY MISTAKEN

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29068, 3 December 1959, Page 23

MAN’S IDENTITY MISTAKEN

Evidence Given At Inquest (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Dec. 2. Fingerprints have proved beyond all doubt that Mrs Dorothy May Leslie, an elderly widow, of Nikau street, Mount Eden, was mistaken when she identified the body of a man who died in Auckland Hospital on October 21 as that of Harry Francis Rose, her sweetheart of 50 years ago. This was established today when the city ’ Coroner (Mr Alfred Addison) resumed the inquest on the body of the man. The inquest was again adjourned. The body will be removed from the mortuary tomorrow for burial. , Sergeant B. C. Revell produced a set of the deceased’s fingerprints obtained on October 29. These were positively identified as those of Phillip Armstrong, alias Frederick George Brown, a convicted person, referred to in the Police Gazette. He also produced Police Gazette photographs of the man. Tui Olga Dare, owner of an apartment house in Turner street, said that on November 21 she viewed a body in the morgue and identified it as Frederick George Brown, one of her tenants. Among his belongings which witness said she handed to the Public Trust Office was a bank book in Brown’s name, showing he had £502 17s 3d in the Post Office Savings Bank. John Udy Knock, steward at the Masonic Club, also identified the body as that of a man he had known as Fred Brown. Brown had been originally employed as a cleaner at the Masonic Club in September, 1958. Constable H. Couppieditch said he made inquiries into the death of a man believed to be Harry Francis Rose. He saw Mrs Dorothy May Leslie, who, on being informed that the police thought the man to be Frederick George Brown, said she had probably made a mistake as it was 21 years since she had seen the man known as Rose.