YOUTH KILLED

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 September 1938, Page 12

YOUTH KILLED

KING’S CROSS “BOHEMIANS.” SYDNEY, August 23. How a youth of 18 suddenly crashed to his death when police chased a stolen light delivery van through the short narrow streets of lower Darlinghurst, was told at the Coroner’s Court this week. The police evidence was that at 2 o’clock one morning a police car noticed a van, which had been reported stolen, going along Bourke Street, and in Riley Street the patrolmen called out to the driver to stop. Someone in the van called out “Coppers” and the van immediately began to accelerate. At 60 m.p.h. the police car chased the van down Riley Street and into William Street, the main thoroughfare leading to Rose Bay and Vaucluse. The van then began to wobble about the wide road, and after it crossed ’William Street crashed into a post. So terrific was the impact that the main part of the van was hurled 85ft. against a building, and portion of the running board- was found 50yds. away.

The driver, Noel Arthur Clarke, 18, was found lying dead 35ft. from the van where he had been thrown. A mere boy of 15 named Williamson, who was found lying beside the van, will be in hospital for twelve months. A third youth, named Borrer, had what even the hardened police described as an inconceivable escape with nothing but a few scratches. He had been sitting between the other two. The police were amazed when he arose out of the wreckage of the van and ran awav. but after a short chase he was caught.

WENT FOR RIDE. In a statement, which was read in Court, Williamson said that with Clarke he had broken into the garage where the van was kept, pushed it into the street, where they left it for an hour and a half. They returned later with Borrer, he said, and went for a ride. They were just going to stop to abandon the van when the police challenged them. They all denied knowledge of two sewing machines, valued at £268, which were in the back of the van. Borrer added that he found a pair of gloves in the van which he put on “as a precaution,” having an idea that the van had been stolen.

Although Clarke, the dead youth, was only 18, the police said he had been convicted 12 times in the past two years, for various offences, and had twice escaped from a reformatory farm.

This tragic incident occurred in the shadow of the heights of King’s Cross, Sydney’s crowded, cosmopolitan flatland, and while the inquest was being held a City Council committee happened to be debating conditions there.

Some remarkable statements were made by Aiderman O’Dea. He said: “I lived there for twelve months and I have never been back since. While I was there I saw ’a murder and a gang war. A young girl was taken to the refer:::.-.Lorn a combination of

bedroom, kitchen and bathroom in which she had been livng with three men. In one building four families had one bathroom between them. “King’s Cross is a blot on Sydney. Why should families have to live in Australia in a building 10 or 11 storeys high? They could have decent homes three or four miles from the city where there is plenty of land. There is no justification for this Bohemian life.”

Ono aiderman immediately asked Alderman O’Dea if the trouble was that he was too old for a Bohemian life, and Aiderman Sir Samuel Walder interjected that he was not, anyway. When Aiderman O'Dea began some further remarks, the Lord Mayor, Aiderman Nock, remarked: “Gentlemen, silence for the Rev. O’Dea.” The committee was discussing various suggestions to ensure adequate light and air in new blocks of flats, and. decided to refer the matter to a sub-committee for investigation. Tn fairness to King’s Cross it may be said that although the remaining old buildings, “residentials,” as they are known, are certainly dark holes, they arc rapidly being replaced by modern blocks of flats. Whether life in an area composed entirely of 11-storey blocks of flats is desirable is another question, but as far as Bohemianism, so called, goes, the fact is, it is there in King’s Cross, if you like to go in search for it —before ■Midnight. After that hour King’s Cross is as deserted looking as the quietest hamlet on some up-conn try railway line.