PRISONER FOUND SHOT

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23114, 31 January 1945, Page 4

PRISONER FOUND SHOT

Awaiting Trial On Serious Charge (Rec. .7.39 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 30. Clifford Tasman Thompson, aged 32, an engineer, was found shot in the chest yesterday in his cell in the Long Bay Penitentiary. With three other men, Thompson was awaiting trial on a charge of having attempted to murder Dr. Reginald Stuart Jones on November 1. Donald Day, aged 41, an underworld character known as “Donald the Duck,” was found Shot in a house in Surry Hills, Sydney, yesterday. The police alleged in Court last week that Day had said he was with Jones on the night Jones was shot. A man and three women have been charged with having murdered Day, a recognised leader of the Sydney underworld. The shooting of Thompson while in gaol is viewed with grave concern by executive officers of the Prisons Department. Although investigations are being made into the possibility that Thompson was shot by a fellow - prisoner, the police lean toward the view that his wound was self-inflicted. His condition is serious, but he is expected to recover. A suggestion that the revolver with which he was shot was smuggled into the gaol in food which Thompson's friends brought him is discounted, as all food parcels are carefully examined before being handed to prisoners. A Magisterial inquiry will be made in an attempt to ascertain how the revolver came into the possession of Thompson.