ST. IVES MURDER KILLING OF A POLICE SERGEANT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 72, 26 March 1914, Page 7

ST. IVES MURDER KILLING OF A POLICE SERGEANT

ACCUSED ACQUITTED. (By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright.) (Received March 26, 10.20 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Thomas Edwin Brown has been acquitted on the charge of murdering Police Sergeant Edwin Hickey at St. Ives (twelve miles from Sydney) in May last. [The shooting took place on Ist May last year. Sergeant Hickey and Constable Barclay went to St. Ives to serve two commitment warrants, and found Brown, who is aged fifty, at the foot of his orchard. It was alleged that when he learned their business he invited the officers to come into the house. The trio walked there, chatting amicably, and Brown led the police officers into the sitting room. Then, turning round suddenly, he asked them what they meant by coming to his house, and ordered them out. Constable Barclay told Brown to consider himself under arrest. The other members of the family then entered the room, and Constable Barclay attempted to seize hold of Brown. Sergeant Hickey also jumped towards Brown and was almost touching him when three shots rang out in quick, succession, and a fourth report a little later. Sergeant Hickey collapsed immediately, three of the bullets having lodged in his stomach, while the fourth had struck Brown's son on the wrist. Sergeant Hickey died on the way to the hospital. Brown had attracted considerable public attention of late years owing to his persistent a-p-pearance in the Supreme Court and other Courts as a litigant. He has filed affidavits on various occasions, alleging corruption among the Judiciary and Law Officers, and a number of high officials.]