SENSATIONAL FRACAS.

Southland Times, Issue 19460, 27 January 1925, Page 5

SENSATIONAL FRACAS.

ELDERLY MAN DEAD. TWO ARRESTS MADE. ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION ALLEGED. (Per United Press Association.) NAPIER, January 26. A sensational fracas on the Marine parade at 8 o’clock last evening resulted in the death of William Charles Clark, timber merchant, aged fifty-seven years, and in the subsequent -arrest of John and Maurice Breen on a charge of manslaughter. The charge is based on the part played by the latter pair, who are aged thirty-two and forty-two respectively, in an alleged attempt at abduction, in which the central figure was the Breens’ four teen-year-old nephew, Frank Wilson, who was recently living on their farm. Last Thursday his mother, accompanied by Clark and others, took the boy away, and on Saturday went to Wairoa and Morere by car, returning last night, when they were met, as soon as the car stopped at Mrs Wilson’s gate, by the Breen brothers. It is alleged that an attempt at kidnapping followed. Clark, who was a boarder at Mrs Wilson’s, and the owner of the car, apparently attempted to prevent the abduction. He struggled with first Maurice and then John Breen, later staggering into the house where he collapsed and died almost immediately. The cause of death is not definitely stated, but the body was marked with abrasions, and there was a cut on the head. The Breens, meanwhile, had driven away with the boy Wilson. They were arrested at Hastings at midnight. The Breens appeared in Court charged with manslaughter, and were remanded a week. Bail was refused.