APPIN TRAGEDY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16378, 11 March 1924, Page 3

APPIN TRAGEDY

CONSTABLE’S KINDNESS TO PRISONER, COURAGE. OF MR CLIFT. SYDNEY, March 10. Mr Guy Clift, the second victim of the Appin tragedy, was a brother of Miss Una Clift, the well-known owner of racehorses. lie leaves a, widow and several children. Mi* Clift gave Simpsun in charge oil Saturday for stealing two revolvers from a store. After the shooting, Simpson went to a hotel, where a constable and eivi.iau rushed ami overpowered him. The prisoner is 34, and was employed for several years about the dam as a mechanic. Prior i.o the shooting lie and Constable Flynn were on friendly terms. When arrested, instead of handcuffing him, Constable Flynn marched him along the street .and shouted him a drink and a packet of cigarettes before, placing him in the motor car. Nobody knew Simpson was under arrest. Besides the revolvers, a motor car belonging to the Works Department was found missing from a. parage at the dam. The car was found later a mile away. Simpson usually drove this car, which was used as a pay car for the men employed at tho dam, sometimes carrying as much as £SOOO. The police are working on a suggested theory that the thefts were preliminary to tho carrying out of a big coup. Mr Clift was supervising engineer at the Great Oordeaux dam, and had one hundred men under his charge. - After a successful University career he won n high place In tho Public Works Department, and was regarded l as one of the finest constructional engineers in the Common wealth. He was six feet high and strongly built. His desperate struggle with the prisoner after he had been fatally wounded is a sample of the personal courage for which he was noted.