CONSTABLE WOUNDED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 144, 20 June 1931, Page 10

CONSTABLE WOUNDED

SHOT TWICE IN THE BODY. FINEST TRADITIONS upheld. At the Polite Court at Newcastle, New South Wales, recently, Thomas Aubrey- Towers, aged 21, clerk, James Norman Miller, aged 20, labourer, ami William Malcom Christian, aged 24, labourer, were committed tor trial on charges of having, at Lambton, maliciously wounded Constable E. E. Mabbutt, with intent to murder. Constable Mabbutt, who using a stick, limped as ho walked to the wit-ness-box, said that at 9.15 p.m. on April 2 he was travelling by motor-cycle at Lambton, and saw a motor-ear with the same number as that on a car just reported stolen. He chased the car through the streets of Lambton at a speed of between 35 and 40 miles an hour. Then, during a sudden turn, the ear stopped. Two men jumped out and ran away, and a third followed them at an interval of a couple of seconds. He chased the third man, who suddenly fa'ced him and fired three shots in succession from a weapon concealed in bis coat pocket. He fired through the pocket. “The first shot strtfek me in the groin,” the constable added. “I hesitated. A second shot was fired, without effect. The third shot hit me in the chest. At the moment I had iny hand on the man’s shoulder. He stepped aside, and I fell to the ground. I called out ‘Stop,’ then I collapsed. When I came to I struggled to my feet, and was mounting my motor-cycle when I collapsed again.' ’ The Government medical officer at Newcastle, Dr. James Leslie, said that he had taken a bullet, from near the lower part of tho constable’s spine during an operation at the Newcastle Hospital. He had not extracted another bullet, because he thought that to take it out would do more damage than to leave it there. A police sergeant said that Towers and Miller had made certain statements to a Sydney detective. They told him they intended to tight the attempted murder charge. They were sorry for the constable. They had only wanted to escape. There was no intent to murder. t Tho magistrate congratulated Con stable Mabbutt on the pluck ho han shown before and after the shooting, and said he had well upheld the finest traditions of the. polive force.