POLICE INQUIRY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 168, 17 June 1936, Page 11

POLICE INQUIRY.

EVIDENCE AT MELBOURNE. MELBOURNE, June 15. At the inquiry by the Royal Commission into the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Police Inspector Brophy, Detective O’.Keete, resuming his evidence, said that after seeing Mrs Orr he realised that.the shooting was not accidental. Witness made no attempt to question the car-driver, Maher, or Mrs Phillips. He was convinced from what Mrs Oil' told him that a crime had been committed. The Royal Commissioner, Judge Macindoo, asked Mr Wil bur Ham, K.C., where his cross-examination was leading. Air Ham, who is appearing foi the Herald and Sun, replied that it was very necessary to find out whether tho police officers had some motive lor falsifying reports handed to the Press. Judge Macindoe: Your suggestion to date is that Brophy may have been shot by an infuriated husband-' Mr Ham: That is what we are here foi. Brophy was in circumstances which could he regarded as indiscreet, therefore lio had something to hide and gave a false account of the mannei in which he received his injuries, while anybody of ordinary intelligence would suspect that his account was false. His colleagues shared that suspicion and senior detectives lent themselves to the falsification of facts. Frederick Millard, of West Coburgh, gave evidence that he was stopped on his way home in his car and was asked to drive Brophy to hospital. Brophy told him lie had been shot at Royal Park. Witness was under tho impression that the shooting was accidental. Dr. Stanley O’Louglilin, of St. Vincent’s Hospital, said that Brophy was his patient on the night of the shooting. Brophy told him ho had been shot and witness gained the impression that it had occurred while ho was on duty. Next day Brophy asked witness to keep Press men away. Dr. O’Loughlin added that Sir Thomas Blarney also asked him to keep the Press away from Brophy as he wanted to prepare an official statement for release to the Press. Dr. A. Carroll, ’ medical superintendent of St. Vincent’s Hospital, said that Brophy told him within a quarter of an hour of his admission that lie (Brophy) had received a telephone message to investigate a case at Royal Park. He went there with a friend and two masked men fired at him. Douglas Gillison, reporter on the Argus, when shown a slip of paper relating to Bropliy’s case, declared that it was certainly not the one placed before reporters by Detective Sloan. He and other reporters had asked whether detectives were engaged on tho affair, to which Sir Thomas Blarney, chief of police, had replied: “What can we do? The men were masked and a torch was flashed into Brophy’s face.” Blarney-also said that lie did not know where the first Press statement about Brophy had originated. Tho inquiry was adjourned.