THE FACTS NOT DISCLOSED

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 44, 5 December 1929, Page 2

THE FACTS NOT DISCLOSED

SYDNEY BURNING FATALITY

A HUMAN TORCH.

Mr May, who was On leave, had Ins vacation interrupted: to hold the inquest. He was compelled to do so, because the bo<% of Ivory had been identified before him. Edith Ivory said her husband told her on the night of the tradegy that he was going to the Leichhardt St ad, ium. “I have not booked a seat,” he told her, “and if I can’t get m. 1 will com© back and hear the fight on the wireless.” He then borrowed, £i from witness.

“The uext time I saw my husband,” continuocL.Mrs Ivory, “was at 2.30 a.m. on October 26. He wa g with two young men, and was crawling towards me on his handig and Knees on the footpath of U then-street. He( said: ‘My God, I’ve been burned.’ ” STORY OF ATTACK. Ivory later told witness that four men attacked him in Foveaux-street, and robbed him of his watch and cha n. “I got away from them,” he said, “and they followed me. Then they took me to Cooper-lane and burned me.” When witness wanted to send loi the police her husband said: “Don’t talk to me now, I will tell you all in the morning.” ’At 6 a.m. Ivory said he did not want the police in the house. “You go for the police and I’ll be gone when you come,” he threatened. “If I had a gun I would shoot myself.” DIDN’T TELL TRUTH. “I tried every way to persuade my husband to tell what happened,” Mrs Ivory informed the Cojcner “All he would! say was, .‘There is nothing to tell you until I get better.’ I was quite satisfied he* was not telling the trufh.”

Before going to hospital, Ivory said to his. wife: “I know the man who' has my watch and chain, and burned 1 me, but I don’t know his name.” He added that he would describe him to witness when h© was better. ! In answer !to the coroner, Mrs j Ivory said she did not know anybody i wTHi a grudee against he r husband. | Edward- Mitchell Kidd, stove fitter, said that early on the morning of Oct-i oher 26 he wa s awakened by a friend | Reginald Uhde, calling, “There is 1 1 man on fire in the lane.” Witness saw Ivory lying in Waterloo-street, while i UhdP was brushing the man’s smouldering clothes. Witness and Uhde took Ivory to his home. WRITHING AND MOANING. -W Louis Reginald Uhde, tailor’s cutter, of Bloomfield-street, Surry Hills,) said that on awakening between 1 and 2 a.m. on; October 26, he saw a! glow in his room, which looked! like « light from a torch. Witness heard * man calling, and later found Ivory lying on his back near the gutter of Waterloo-street. He was afire, and was writb.ng and moaning. ( “I filled a pot with water,” said Uhde, “and threw it over the man. He was burning from the chest to well below his knees.” ( Ivory, he_added, appeared to have been drinking, and, when taken homo S aid( to his wife: “The hoodlum set fire to me.” Uhde said that when he found Ivory the latter was without a hat or boots.

SYDNEY, November 28. An open verdict was recorded by the City Coroner, Mr E. A. May, toj-day, in the case of Thomas William Ivory, 44, bricklayer. who was found, badly burned, in Fovea,ux-street, Surry Hdlst, in the early hours of October 26. The Coroner congratulated the police for their thorough investigation, and said he thought Ivory had told neither the police nor his wife the true facts of the case.

“I intend returning an open verdict, as there was not sufficient evidence to show whether his death was accidental or felonious.”

INTERVIEW AT HOSPITAL. ... Sergeant John Terry said that when lie asked ivory, at Sydney Hosp.tal, to tell him what happened, he replied: “i was passing 'looney’s Ho, tel at the corner of Jfoveaux and Bell' evue slice ts, about iO p.m. on Oct, ober 20, when two men spoke to me. One said; ‘Hello Dig’ and the othe» hit me on the liead with something hard. They knocked me down and robbed me of 275, a watch and a silver chain.” Asked to describe his attackers, Ivory replied that the man who had hit him was sft 4m or sft high, 20 years of age, with fair complexion. He was clean-shaved and was dressed in light clothes and a grey cap. Ivory added that he could not identify the other man, as he did not see him. Witness stated that Ivory, continuing his story, alleged that the men followed him to his home, threw something over him and set fire to him. Sergeant Terry said; he asked Ivory why he had not reported the assault to the police, and he answered: “I didn’t intend reporting. I will wait till I get better and fix it up myself.” ‘T have no reason to doubt the evidence of Uhde or Kidd,” said Sergeant* Terry to the Coroner. ‘‘Assuming that is correct, Ivory’s statement regarding being and set on fire is incorrect. Deceased’s 'clothing had an odour of kerosene about it, but we have no evidence as to how it got there.

accident possible. “It is possible that he got the kero, sene" over him accident'“iy. It may have caught flight accidentally. It is also possible some person may have maliciously thrown the spirit over him. ' In. his dying depositions, Ivory des. cribed how two men had “let off and robbed Tie alleged the men threw some stuff over him, and then threw a match to it, and he “went up in flames.” “Both men hit me,” the deposition continued. ‘‘The first was about 34 or 3*5, inclined to be fair, wearing a cap, clean, shaven, and about 10 stone. The second man wuis nuggetty, 37 or 38, and clean shaven. I think I would know the two men again if I saw them.” Sergeant Harry Coombes said Ivory told him that four men assaulted him in Foveaux-street, and, following him home, knocked him down and! set him on fire. Witness noticed a smell of kerosene on Ivory’s clothing, “KEPT SOMETHING BACK.” “Li their investigations, the police were given no assistance,” said the Coroner. “There are also some discrepancies’ in the dyJig depositions). Ivory- to kl his wife tj lat foUr men at ~ tacked him ; yet in his dying depositions he said two. FcaiTt help thinking that there was something Ivory did not want known, and lie told the police and his wife the first story that came to his mind, so as to prevent the real truth hemg 'known.