ALLEGED HOAX

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19023, 25 May 1936, Page 12

ALLEGED HOAX

LABOURER FOR TRIAL POLICE SEARCH FOR BODY SYDNEY, May. 12. At the Newtown Police Court yesterday, Leslie Raymond Dudman, 19, labourer, was committed for trial on a charge of having, by allegedly falsa statements, “caused certain police officers, maintained at the public expense tor the public benefit, to devote their time and services to the investigation of false allegations, thereby temporarily depriving the public of their services and rendering liege subjects of the King liable to suspicion, accusation, and arrest.” ' ■ The police evidence was that Dudman, while in custody on January 6, stated that a man named George McTavish, had shot his wife with a sawn-off shotgun and buried the body in * hole. Dudrpnn said McTay*sh came ,to his place, got a pick and fie (Dudman) helped him to dicr a hoie in a paddock in Euston road, Alexandria. He said he helped McTavish to convey the body, and; that they wheeled it in a fruit barrow at 4 o’clock one morning. * s The police further alleged,that when Dudman was taken to a paddock in Euston road, Alexandria, he indicated a number of places, where he declared the body of a woman had been buried. No body was found. A terrace of houses in which McTavish was said to have lived was found to have been demolished six months before. Next day at North Rocks, Parramatta, Dudman pointed out a hut in which, he said, McTavish lived. Inquiries showed that no person named McTavish had been on the electoral roll in Sydenham of St. Peters, and there was no record in the Registrar-General’s Department of a mart named George McTavish having been married in the State during the past 20 yeais. The police tendered a list of expenses, totalling more than £6, incurred in the search,. Two sergeants, three detectives and three constables, it. was alleged, spent 46J, hours on the case, and police care travelled 74 miles.