INQUIRY INTO FIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21161, 19 April 1932, Page 11

INQUIRY INTO FIRE.

LONG SEARCH' FOR WITNESS. EFFORTS WITHOUT SUCCESS. [BY TELEGRVPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION*.] GISBORNE, Monday. Long deferred while a police search was proceeding for a material witness, the adjourned inquiry into the Garrison Hall fire last year, was concluded before the district coroner. Mr. T. H. Harper, S.M., to day. The fire occurred early on the morning of January 21, 1931, the hall then being mainly in use to house a miniature golf course. The inquiry was opened on September 17 and extended over two and a-half days, following which an adjournment was granted in order that the police could subpoena a certain witness named and bring any other material evidence. When the inquiry was resumed to-day Detective McLeod stated that every effort to trace the witness had been made without success. Thereforo he could only ask the coroner to close the inquiry.

Tho coroner reviewed the evidence in detail to-day and said: The fact that two witnesses, apparently unknown to one another, both got. hold of the same story that the fire was caused by two men, threw considerable suspicion on those two men and also on a man in Gisborne. There was one other man who could throw considerable light on tho position but he had managed to keep completely out of the reach of the police. Although there was grave suspicion on the parties named, the evidence before tho court was not sufficiently strong to establish whether the fire was intentional or accidental.

The finding was that the Garrison Hall was burned on the morning of January 21 and that, in the coroner's opinion, the evidence did not establish whether the fire originated accidentally or through an incendiary.