BOMB PLOT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 152, 24 December 1935, Page 10

BOMB PLOT

HEAVY SENTENCES

"A DIABOLICAL CRIME"

(From "The Post's" Representative.) . SYDNEY, December 19. The trial of four men, who plotted to blow up a house at West Wallsend, near Newcastle, \yith a bomb, has ended with all. being found guilty, and three of them being sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The conspiracy can be easily told. Albert Augustus ..Smith, a baker and picture-show, proprietor at Gloucester on the North Coast of New South Wales, gave an option of sale over his picture show for £3000 to two agents, in partnership, one of whom was Henry Hall. Smith found tnat he had under-valued his theatre business by £2000, and tried to induce Hall to release him from the option. Hall meanwhile had found a'purchaser in Ernest Lowe, of West Wallsend, and. determined to > exercise his option. Smith then' decided to use violent means to retain his picture show. He conspired with two brothers, Bernard Brown and Samuel Brown, to blow up Lowe's residence. The Browns brought in their nephew, Thomas Brown, who placed, a home-made bomb, comprising gelignite, detonators, and a lighted candle against Lowe's house. The plot failed because rain fell and extinguished the candle. Mr. Justice Halse Rogers, in sentencilig Smith to twelve years' penal servitude, said, that the business transaction at Gloucester seemed to have upset Smith's mental balance. He could not see any mitigating circumstances for Smith,, who was a dangerous/ man to be at large. There was no doubt that Smith was the originator, and after he had brought Bernard Brown into the scheme the latter apparently induced. ■ Samuel Brown to join in. Had rain not fallen, there, seemed to be no doubt that the bomb would have gone off and wrecked the building, blowing up the people who at the time occupied it. The crime was diabolical ,and appeared analogous to attempted murder. Mr. Justice Halse Rogers sentenced Bernard Brown and Samuel Brown to seven years' penal' servitude. Thomas Brown was bound over to'be of good behaviour. The Judge gave Samuel Brfiwn the right to petition for release after he had served part of his sentence, provided his cdnduct in .gaol was to the satisfaction of the authorities. When asked by, counsel to extend, the same compassion ip Bernard' Brown, the Judge replied that he would not make any recommendation in his favour or against him. He was satisfied that Thomas Cecil Brown was a dupe, who, having been led astray by the telder men, was not strong enough to resist them. ' Detective-Sergeant Delaney said that Bernard Joseph Brown was reputed to have been a wealthy man until, through misfortune in business dealings, ,he lost his money. Samuel Brown had borne a good character and was regarded as a hard worker, being well spoken of by his employer! Thomas. Brown was a boxer of some note, and had tried to make a living at that calling. Smith still has to face another charge—that of conspiring with persons unknown to blow up the house at Maroubra,-a Sydney suburb, of Henry Hall. This house was considerably damaged by an explosion and the occupants had. narrow escapes.