MR. PINHEY’S FATE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 188, 7 May 1931, Page 11

MR. PINHEY’S FATE

Finding at Inquest

BLOWN INTO WATER

On Neighbourly Mission

After hearing evidence at an inquest yesterday, the theory was advanced by the coloner, Mr. I. Salek, J.P., that William George Pinhey, the business man whose disappearance from home and discovery nearly three weeks later in the water near Seatoun wharf, occurred recently, had been blown into the sea by an exceptionally strong wind while engaged in an act of neighbourly kindness. “There is no evidence,” said the coroner, “to show how Mr. Pinhey had got into the water. But there is evidence that on that night the electric light failed and that Mr. Pinhey, out of kindness for his neighbour, with whom he was on visiting terms, thought he might require . some lighting power, and left his home in order to see Mr. Anderson, his neighbour, and take over some candles. The night was extremely gusty and heavy—in fact, one or two accidents occurred in the. city at about that time through exceptional force of wind. Mr. Pinhey was evidently blown across the road and drowned”

Evidence had been given by John Pinhey, son of the dead man, and by Bonifacius Anderson, a schoolmaster, whose home is at 71 Dundas Street, Seatoun. Mr. Anderson said that Mr. Pinhey, who sometimes visited him, might have called at his house on the night of his disappearance, April 11, although the weather was so wild and stormy that his knock would not have been heard. Witness’s back gate opened on to Dundas Street, but the front of the house faced the sea, from which it was separated by 70 or 80 feet at high tide. Mr. Pinhey, getting no reply, might have walked round to the front. The wind was a southerly of exceptional strength, and it was quite possible that a man walking along the waterfront would be blown in, said witness to Mr. M. J. Crombie, who was appearing for Mr. Pinhey’s relatives. He himself, later in the evening, had found it difficult to keep his feet. Constable Henry, of Seatoun, agreed that on the night of Mr. Pinhey’s disappearance the weather had been exceptionally rough. The space between Mr. Anderson’s front gate and the sea was open. For a person walking along the seafront there would be a risk of being blown into the sea. The verdict was that deceased had been found drowned on April 29, and that there was no evidence to show how he got into the water.