SHOOTING OF ESCAPEE

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1929, Page 8

SHOOTING OF ESCAPEE

REFUSED TO BE TAKEN ALIVE. SYDNEY, October 25. The Parramatta District Coroner (Mr. H. Richardson Clark) held yesterday that Constable Bartlett, of Rooty Hill, was justified in shooting Charles Thomas Aiken at Rooty Hill on the night of September 25. The Coroner , said that the law was definite on the subj’ect. If . a police officer attempted to arrest' a felon, ‘ and such person fled, knowing that he was to be arrested, then he could be lawfully shot if he could not otherwise be apprehended. “In this case it is a fair assumption that if Aiken was not shot he would have got away,” said the Coroner. Charles Andrew Aiken, the father of the deceased, broke down several times during the inquiry. Charles Andrew,Aiken said that his son had always been a good boy at home. He left Pennant Hills about six weeks before his death to look for work. Sergeant Purdon, of Lithgow, gave evidence of Aiken’s arrest on September 22, in company with a man named Niass, at Mt. Victoria Pass on a charge of horse-stealing. ’ George Normas Niass, 18, described Aiken who had said that the police would never take him alive. The father of the deceased at this .stage interposed: “This man (pointing to Niass) is a thoroughly bad person. He used to come out to my place and coax my boy away with the horses. Then he blamed everything on to my boy. Last May I caught him sleeping on my premises, and when I told him to go away he pointed a rifle at me.”

Susan Aiken said that her nephew came to her house on the night of September 25. When Constable Bartlett walked into the place Aiken hid undei* the table, but eventually emerged. The constable said: “Put up your hands and surrender,” but Charles .made, a 'move with one hand to his pocket, whereupon the constable drew his revolver and covered him. Later, the constable put this weapon away, and then the two struggled on the floor, gradually working towards the door. Aiken was getting the better of matters. Outside she heard a shot and saw the constable fire into the air, and then she heard another shot. Constable William Edward Bartlett said that when arrested Aiken said: /‘You won’t take me alive.” When witness put his revolver away Aiken rushed him and punched him. They closed and struggled, first on the flooi* and then in the yard, and Aiken tore at witness’s mouth with his fingers, and said “I’ll knock your brains out.’

“He broke away ‘from my grasp by slipping out of his overcoat, and I fell,” said Bartlett. “Then he rushed back, kicked at my face and injured my finger. He then ran away. I called out twice: ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’ He did not stop, and I fired into the air from where I was lying. He ran on and passed put of sight. I got up and fired in the direction in which he went. I searched for him, and found him 242 “feet away from where I fired. He was a powerful man, and too strong for me. No one regrets it more than I do.” “I have a good deal of sympathy for “the parents of the dead man,- and just as much, sympathy for the constable, jyh.o is apparently such a ’decent fellow, and who would rather. have forfeited his position thfan have shot Aiken,” said , the Coroner. “There is no doubt that Aiken was a violent, resentful, and excited man when the 'constable arrived.”