FATHER SHOT DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 16

FATHER SHOT DEAD.

SON SENT FOR TRIAL.

SEQUEL TO FAMILY QUARREL. Following a violent sceno in a houso at Alphington, Melbourne, on tho night of October 21, Charles Harrison, tho owner of a battory manufacturing business at North Melbourne, was shot through tho nock and chest with a shotgun. Ho was found lying dead in tho passage of tho houso by polico officers. Subsequently Basil Alfred Harrison, aged 27 years, his son, was arrested and charged with murder. At tho inquest the coronor committed accused for trial. Mrs. Florence Harrison, widow of Charles Harrison, said that her husband arrived homo in an intoxicated condition. Ho bocamo violent, and struck her, and sho ran out of the houso.

Ivy Harrison, a daughter of tho doad man, said that when sho tried to restrain hor father from striking lier mother sho was knocked to tho floor, and was dazed by tho blow. Sho heard a shot, and, on looking up, saw hor brother standing over her fathor with a shotgun in his hand.

Detect)vo G. Halsoll gave evidence that Basil Harrison, when interviewed after tho tragedy, said that his father had gone mad with drink. Ho had threatened to kill them all. Ho (the son) triod to protect his mother. There was a struggle, of which ho remembered littlo, until a shotgun was discharged and his father fell. Counsel urgod that front a legal and public point of view Harrison should not bo sent for trial. Ho did not think that there were 12 sane men in the community who would find him guilty of murder. The coroner said that it had not been shown sufficiently that either the life of Mrs. Harrison or that of her daughter was in imminent peril, and in those circumstances ho could not absolve tho slayer.