FATALITY IN AN AUCKLAND HOTEL

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 145, 17 December 1919, Page 8

FATALITY IN AN AUCKLAND HOTEL

LICENSEE DIES FROM INJURIES.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) AUCKLAND, 16th December. As a result of a disturbance which occurred in the Clarendon Hotel after midnight last night, the Hcensee of the hotel was taken to the hospital about 1 o'clock this morning suffering from concussion of the brain and a broken jaw,' and two young men, Harold P. A. Stapleton (21) and Alexander Coppel (20) were placed under arrest on a charge of assault. The licensee, whose name is Frank Brazier, subsequently died in hospital, and further developments are expected.

The account given by the young men indicates 'that Brazier's injury was the result of a struggle in the dark in one of the rooms of the hotel. It was getting on towards 1 o'clock in the morning when a constable on duty outside the hotel was informed that there was trouble in the hotel, and on going there he found Brazier lying unconscious in a passage with a wound on his head. In reply to his inquiries the young men, it is said, stated that they had gone to their bedrooms late, and that Stapleton, after a time, was awakened by hearing somebody in his room. He got to grips with the intruder, but was getting the worst of the encounter, when he called to his mate for help, and Coppel rushed to the rescue. The result was that the other man was knocked out, and was found to be the licensee of the hotel.