POLICE HELD AT BAY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3192, 19 August 1930, Page 3

POLICE HELD AT BAY

TWO MEN SHOT IN VILLAGE. MURDER CHARGER AGAINST OLD MAN. An extraordinary scene in the village of Uley, near Dursley, Gloucestershire, when an old man with a double-barrelled gun defied 400 villagers for over an hour, while a dead man’s body lay at his feet, had a sequel at Dursley Police Court, when John Doibear (70) was remanded for a week, accused of murdering William Henry Hill (47), a foreman mechanic and smallholder. Hill was shot dead, and his companion, Charles Pitcher, was wounded. When the police asked for an immediate remand, Doibear exclaimed: “Do you want me to say what I did it for?” “No, don’t say anything now,” replied the magistrate. The tragedy was first seen by Mrs. Hill, wife of the shot man. Her husband and Pitcher had just left the house to do some fencing, when she heard three quick shots. Hill clutched his face and collapsed, while Pitcher staggered into the ditch with a groan.

It was more than an hour before the police, by a ruse, were able to recover Hill’s body. When they arrived they found themselves threatened by the old man with the gun. The police eventually retired to the back of a cottage on the knoll and the crowd kept shouting to the man with the gun while the officers crept foot by foot up the garden where he stood. Two of them suddenly made a spring, threw the man down, and wrenched away his gun. As he was being taken away by the police the crowd cried “Kill him!” and “Lynch him!” and began to throw stones. The police had to close in to protect him from violence.