MRS MELLISH TELLS STORY OF SIEGE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31728, 11 July 1968, Page 17

MRS MELLISH TELLS STORY OF SIEGE

(I».Z. Preu Association— Copyright) SYDNEY, July 10. Mrs Beryl Mellish, the teen-aged bride and, until yesterday, the hostage of the gunman, Wallace Mellish, has said arguments between them began early in the Glenfield siege because he refused to honour his promise to the police to give himself up, the Sydney “Sun” reported today.

“I threw my wedding ring in his face in one of the arguments,” the newspaper quotes Mrs Mellish as saying in an interview. I only put it back when he threatened to shoot me with a shotgun. That was the only way I thought I could save my baby and myself.”

Mrs Mellish and her 12-week-old son were held hostage for nearly eight days by Mellish in a cottage besieged by policemen. Mellish, who surrendered to the police yesterday, had forced them to agree to his marriage and on the second day of the siege a prison chaplain, the Rev. Clyde Paton, conducted the ceremony.

“When I agreed to the wedding, I didn't think it would be possible for it to be arranged,” Mrs Mellish told the “Sun.” “Anyway although I am now his legal wife, I don’t feel as though I am married to him.” Mrs Mellish said that although she and her busband had grown up in the same area, she did not know him very well because he was in a higher class at school. It was only a few days before the siege began that she had met him again after a long time.

“I agreed to go and live with him because he promised me a big house and plenty of money, and that he would look after my child.” Mrs Mellish told the newspaper that she did not know Mellish had any guns in the house until the police came to arrest him. ‘Gave Me Beating’ Several times she tried to escape from the cottage, but each time Mellish grabbed her. “He pulled me back, gave me a beating and tied me up, either with a dog chain or a belt to anything that was nearby—a chair or

a table or the bed,” she said. “He was very happy when Commissioner Allan gave him the Armalite rifle. He played with it for a long time, but he couldn’t find out how to work it” The rifle—the most powerful in the police armoury—was given to Mellish after the gunman had threatened to kill his wife, her child and Mr Paton in front of Police Commissioner Norman Allan unless the gun was forthcoming. After Mellish’s surrender Detective Superintendent Donald Fergusson, who was in charge of the siege, said he had substituted a splinter of wood for part of the firing mechanism. ‘I Was A Prisoner’ The Sydney “Daily Mirror” quotes Mrs Mellish as saying: “I was really a prisoner in that house. I know a lot of people are saying that I was with Wally all the way. Well, that’s not right I was a hostage all right and really thought at times I was going to die. “Thank God it is all over. I’ll need several days to rest and think over what to do next I just have to do the right thing for my baby.” The “Daily Mirror" reports that Mellish slept soundly at

the Morlsset Hospital for the criminally insane from 1.30 a.m. today without sedation. The medical superintendent of the hospital (Dr T. Lonie) said today that when Mellish arrived at the hospital, 100 miles north of Sydney, soon after midnight, he was calm and in good spirits. He would remain under observation for some weeks. Dr Lonie said Mellish had been a patient at the hospital from March to July of last year. He had been sentenced to three years hard labour on a stealing charge and had been referred to the Callan Park Mental Hospital in Sydney for observation. After he had escaped from Callan Park once and, later, had made a suicide attempt, Mellish was sent to Morriset, Dr Lonie said. “Under strict observation and special treatment, he appeared to recover,” he added.

Dr Lonie said that, in retrospect, he was convinced that the police were right in playing a waiting game during the siege. “Wally is of below-average intelligence—l would say he is mentally like a 10-year-old child,” he said. “He has a history of only minor violence but, with his borderline intelligence, it was quite unpredictable what he would do under pressure.”