POLICE INQUIRY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 169, 18 June 1936, Page 7

POLICE INQUIRY.

REPORTERS’ EVIDENCE. • MELBOURNE, June 17. At tlio inquiry by the Royal Commission into the shooting of Police Superintendent Brophy, to-day’s witnesses were mainly reporters on the Argus, Age, Herald and Sun-Pictorial, who gave evidence of the conflicting stories told at police headquarters following the shooting of Brophy. Earl Robinson, of the Sun-Pictorial, and Laurence Whitehead, of the Herald, both said tha.t a statement produced at the inquiry was not the one they had seen at the police Press bureau. The handwriting and phrasing were different.

Lionel Luxton, of the Argus, explained that lie and another reporter had interviewed Brophy at the hospital. He had referred them to Detective McKerral, who had issued a corrected statement regarding Brophy’s injuries and the manner in which they were caused. Later in the evening one 3. the broadcasting stations put over the air still another and more detailed version. McKerral was called on the telephone, and when told about it lie insisted that both the Press and the broadcasting statements were the same, but if the latter was different then somebody had coloured it. Harold Austin, reporter on the Age, said that when Sir Thomas Blarney was a.skcd bv reporters whether the usual methods were being taken to apprehend Brophy’s attackers, Sir Thomas Blarney replied: “No; what can we do? The men were masked and a torch was flashed in Brophy’s face. There is no way of identifying them. Mr O’Bryan, who is appearing for the police, interposed: What did you take that to mean ? Austin: That there was little likelihood of the offenders being apprehended. Judge Macindoe: Poesn t it mean that there was no likelihood on earth of their being apprehended and that investigations had ceased ? Au‘ tin : Yes. The inquiry was adjourned.