INTENT TO MURDER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 64, 17 March 1937, Page 11

INTENT TO MURDER

MELBOURNE CHARGE

THE BROPHY AFFAIR

ALLEGED IDENTIFICATION

(Received March 17, noon.)

MELBOURNE, This Day.

7n connection with the shooting affair on May 22 last year, Superintendent Brophy appeared in the City Court today and identified Geoffrey Davies, aged 32, as the man who shot him.

Davies, who was charged with having wounded Superintendent Brophy with intent to murder, was committed for trial.

A Melbourne cable received in May last year stated that Superintendent John O'Connell Brophy, who had begun duty as chief of the Victorian Criminal Investigation Branch a week previously, was shot in,the face and the right arm in some mysterious manner. The Police Department was at first exceedingly reticent. A Police Press Bureau official declared that Mr. Brophy was accidentally shot in the right arm while handling his own pistol at police headquarters. Newspaper reporters, who were banned at the detective office, however, ascertained that Mr. Brophy was shot by a hold-up gang who mistook him for a prominent Melbourne bookmaker who habitually carries ; large sum of money and resides in Parkville suburb. Subsequently an official police statement declared that Mr. Brophy went to Royal Park to try and catch some car bandits who had been operating in that locality, and was himself held up by two armed men, who apparently recognised him, and fired three shots before Mr. Brophy could manipulate his own revolver, which jammed. One bullet passed^ through Mr. Brophy's lower jaw, just missing a vital artery> and emerged at the back of his neck. Another broke his right wrist, and a third was deflected from his heart by the buckle of his braces. Brophy was accompanied by two women.

The State Cabinet appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the affair. Ministers were said to be dissatisfied with the conflicting stories attending Brophy's injuries and the attitude of the Commissioner, Sir Thomas Blarney. The report of the Commission completely exonerated Brophy.