DEATH OF A BOXER

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 228, 26 April 1933, Page 2

DEATH OF A BOXER

Killed by Train

VERDICT AT INQUEST

Press Association. —Copyright,

Wellington, April 24.—An inquest was held to-day into the death of Harold Frederick Thomas, a lightweight boxer who represented New Zealand at the last Olympic Games and who was killed by a train at Thorndon station.on the night of march 29. The verdict of the coroner, Mr. Gilbertson, was that Thomas committed suicide while mentally depressed. Mrs. Mary Kirk, mother of the girl to whom Thomas was about to become engaged, said her daughter died in hospital of Bright’s disease on March 29, and Thomas in subsequent conversation said he was about to become engaged to her. He seemed depressed but quite cheerful when he left about 9 p.m., and said he would call again in the morning. Stewart Donald McCallum, a passenger on the train on which Thomas travelled from Lambton, said Thomas got up from his seat half a minute after the tiain was under way and went on to the platform. He climbed to the telescopic handrails and jumped down between the rails. The action was apparently quite deliberate and witness had no time to prevent him. Mr. Gilbertson said it seemed to him that Thomas took the train intending to commit suicide in desperation owing to the girl’s death. He would return a verdict of suicide while mentally depressed. “It is a thousand pities,” he added, “that a fine young fellow like this should take his own life, but it is a great pity that he was not sufficiently controlled to overcome this thing.”