THE NAPIER SENSATION

Southland Times, Issue 19461, 28 January 1925, Page 8

THE NAPIER SENSATION

FRAY IN THE STREET. FATAL CONSEQUENCES. TWO* BROTHERS CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER. NAPIER, January 26. The sequel to a family disagreement over a 14-year-old boy was a brief but sensational episode at Napier on Sunday night, briefly recorded at the time, and resulted in illiam Chalmers Clark, aged 57, timber merchant of Port Ahuriri. The scene of the fatal altercation was Marine Parade, and the time was about a quarter past eight. The affair was sharp and short. After it, bleeding from a scalp wound and battered somewhat about the face and arms, Clark staggered into the house, where be collapsed and died. THE CENTRAL FIGURE. Frank Wilson, the 14-year-old son of Mrs M. Wilson, with whom Clark boarded at No. 65 on the Parade, is the central figut° in the events that culminated so tragically. The boy’s father died when his son was an infant, and subsequently his mother, who was formerly a Miss Breen, sent her child to live with her parents at Mahora. Hastings. The boy’s uncles, John and Maurice Breen, were arrested at midnight last night as a consequence of the catastrophe, and were charged with manslaughter at the Napier Magistrate’s Court this morning. John Breen, a sturdy, thickset man of 32, is a storeman at the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ warehouse in Hastings. His brother Maurice, slighter in build, is blind in one eye and his head droops slightly on his shoulder. By occupation he is a slaughterman at the Tomoana freezing works. Both the accused men lived on their parents’ property at Mahora. It is there that the boy Wilson was sent by his mother several years ago. and he was still there until last Thursday, when he was taken •way by his mother and Mr Clark. The boy’s mother asserts that he was ill-treated and overworked. tax! that for these and other reasons she wanted the child herself. It was her intention, she stated to a reporter this morning, to send him to college, and she would have been preparing this week to select a suitable school. It is surmised that in any case there was a considerable amount of illfeeling somewhere, and the climax thereto was the return of the boy to his mother. Last Thursday when Clark, she, and others were driving past the Breens’ property on th° Pakowhai road, they saw the boy at the gate and called to him. He came to them willingly, it is stated, and from the Hastings Post Office Mrs Wilson sent her sister an urgent telegram to say that the child would not be returning. The boy was then brought to Napier and stayed at his mother’s house that night and the following day. MOTHER S UNEASINESS. “Although I had the boy I had an uneasy feeling that there would be trouble,” said Mrs Wilson, “so on Saturday morning Mr Clark agreed to drive us up to Wairoa and Morere." In the car on the trip were Mrs Wilson. Miss Dyett, Miss Jones. Mr Clark and the boy Frank Wilson, and according to schedule they returned to Napier last evening, pulling up at five minutes past eight outside the house on the parade. The subsequent movements were electric with dramatic action. A form approached the car and pulled the boy out from the rear seat. Mrs Wilson, according to her own story, screamed: “Oh, they’re taking him.” Clark, apparently anxious to intercede, stepped from rhe car. He immediately came to blows with one of the Breens, who apparently came across the road from the opposite footpath, and the pair went down together. Breen on top. The pair were struggling and Clark gained supremacy. “Have you had enough?” he asked as he kneeled over his antagonist. “I don’t know' who you are,” was the reply Breen is said to have made. AN EXCHANGE OF BLOWS. Meanwhile things had moved quickly. John Breen, it is alleged, had carried the boy to another car about five yards back along the parade. Mrs Wilson says that she noted the number and then rushed through the gate to open the house and telephone the police. The other Breen, as the story goes, here returned to Clark’s car, ordering his brother back across the road. Then he and Clark exchanged blows. Mrs Wilson asserts that she saw him hit Clark on the shoulder. “I went to the ’phone,’ she said, ‘and tried to get the police. Then Mr Clark came in. His head was bleeding from a wound and in his hand he had a toy revolver, a harmless thing, which had broken at the wooden stock. 'This is what they had for me,’ he said. I said, 'Oh, you're hurt,' and wanted to wash the blood off, but he said ‘No, I want the police to see this.’ He put the toy revolver on the table. SUDDEN COLLAPSE. “While I was still at the ’phone he stumbled forward and crumbled up over a chair. I knew he was done,” went on Mrs Wilson (who was formerly a nurse), “when I heard his breathing and I stopped talking to the police and rang for a doctor. Then we gave Mr Clark water, but he was quite unconscious and vomited it up. He died before the doctor arrived, within eight minutes at the most. As for the fighting, it was all over in a flash. One of my brothers was evidently waiting over by the sea wall while the other was probably in the alleyway by the house. As soon as they got clear of Clark they drove away with my son. Clark was quite dead when Dr Leahy arrived, and his body was removed to the morgue.” ARREST OF THE BREENS. Detective-Sergeant Butler and Sergeant Quale took the case in hand, and went to Hastings after the Breen brothers. They returned at 1.30 a.m. with John and Maurice Breen in custody. The boy, Frank Wilson, is also held by the police at present. No. 65 Marine Parade is a handsome twostoreyed dwelling where Mrs Wilson keeps boarders. A verandah and balcony face the Parade and a rough stone wall fronts the sidewalk. In the angle formed by this wall and the pavement apparently Clark and Maurice Breen were jammed when struggling. An alleyway runs alongside the house, and here, so Mrs Wilson asserts, the other Breen must have been hiding. His approach to the car was swift and silent, and he was unperceived in the darkness, while not a word was spoken until she herself screamed in alarm. So brief and sharp was the affair that none of the neighbours was aware of it. Those living in the next door house, outside whose gate almost the Breens stopped their car, knew nothing of the tragedy until this morning. The noise of the cars, they said, was the only thing unusual that they noticed during the night. THE LATE MR CLARK. The late Mr Clark, one of the principals of the firm of Manson and Clark, timber merchants at Port Ahuriri, was a big and powerful man, clean shaved, and said to have been in splendid health. He was a married man living apart from his wife, but was on good terms with his family, and was popular with a large circle of friends. His car, a smart five-seater of English make, played a fairly prominent part in the proceedings. Nothing has been made public concerning the exact cause of his death. Great interest and importance, therefore, attach to the medical testimony and the results of the post-mortem examination.

At the Magistrates Court this morning the accused were charged with manslaughter and remanded, bail being refused. An inquest was opened and adjourned after evidence of identification had been taken,