BROPHY SHOOTING CASE.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13285, 17 June 1936, Page 5

BROPHY SHOOTING CASE.

WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE? N E WSP A PER C OUNSE L’ S ALLEGATIONS. United Press Assn.—By Electric T elegra {)h —Co p v righ t. MELBOURNE, June 16. At the police inquiry into the -hooting of Inspector Brophy, Detective O Keefe, resuming his evidence , said that after seeing Mrs Orr lie realised that the shooting was not accidental. Witness made no attempt to question the car driver Maher nor Mrs Phillips. He was

convinced from what Mrs Orr told him that a crime had been committed.

The Royal Commissioner, Judge Macincloc, asked Mr Ham, K.C., where his cross-examination was leading. Mr Ham, who was appearing for the Herald and Sun, replied that it was very necessary to find out whether the police officers had some motive for ialsifyinor the reports handed to the Press.

Judge Mac-indoe: Your suggestion to date is that Inspector Brophy may have been shot by an infuriated husband. Mr Ham : That’s what we are here for. Brophy was in circumstances which could be regarded as indiscreet, therefore he had something to hide and gave a false account of the manner in which he received his injuries. While anybody •with ordinary intelligence would suspect his account to be false, his colleagues shared that suspicion and the senior detectives lent themselves to a falsification of the facts. Frederick Millard, of West Coburgh, gave evidence that lie was stopped on his way home in his car and was' asked to drive Brophy to the hospital. Brophy told him he had been shot at Royal Park. Witness was under the impression that the shooting was accidental Dr. Stanley O 'Lough Hn, ojf St. Vincent’s Hospital, said Brophy was his patient. On the night of the shooting Brophy told him be had been shot and witness had gained the impression that it occurred while he was on duty. Next day Brophy asked witness to keep the Pressmen away. Dr. O’Coughlin added that Sir Thomas Blarney also asked him to keep the Press away from Brophy, as ho wanted to prepare an official statement for release to the Press. Dr. A. Carroll, medical superintendent of St. Vincent's Hosjiital, said Brophy told him within a quarter of an hour of bus admission that he (Brophy) received a telephone message to investigate a ease at Royal Park. He went there with a friend and two masked men fired at li im. Douglas Gillison, reporter on the Argus, when shown a slip of pajicr relating to Brophy’s case, declared it certainly was not the one placed before the renorters by Detective Sloan. He and the other reporters asked whether the detectives were engaged on the affair, to which -Sir Thomas Blarney replied: “What can we do? The men were masked and a torch was flashed in Brophy’s face.” S r Thomas Blarney also said lie* did not know where the first Press statement about Brophy had originate d. r 1