SHOTS IN COURT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1938, Page 10

SHOTS IN COURT

DEMONSTRATION BY EXPERT. RIFLE DISCHARGED WITH SAFETY CATCH ON. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WANGANUI, October 7. Two rifle shots shattered the calm of the Magistrates’ Court, Wanganui, today, when Mr S. M. Dixon, district coroner, conducted an inquest into the death of William Henry Edward Marchant, who died from a rifle shot wound when pig-hunting near Waverley on September 18. The shots were fired by SeniorSergeant G. G. Kelly, arms advisory officer to the Police Department, Wellington, who demonstrated with the rifle that was found by Marchant’s body that the weapon could be discharged even though it was uncocked and the safety catch applied. “In many cases of this nature the opinion is expressed that the fatality was due to carelessness, but there seems to be a false sense of security among many young men who go game hunting,” said the coroner, at the conclusion of the hearing of evidence. The issue had resolved itself into one slightly wider than the immediate concern of the inquest, the discovery of the cause of death. The evidence had brought forward information which might prove useful in preventing similar accidents, he said.