SHOOTS HIMSELF

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 92, 10 February 1947, Page 7

SHOOTS HIMSELF

ON WAY TO BLACK MARIA Colonel the Hon. Sir Maurice Drummond, Acting-Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances in which a 26-year-old prisoner shot himself while being taken to a Black Maria' outside Old Street Magistrate’s Court. ,

The prisoner,- Edward William Hatch, aged 26, of Maitland House, Bishops Way, E., died in St. Le'onard’s Hospital, Shoreditch, from a bullet wound in the chest. Hatch was being escorted across the yard in the rear of the court after being sentenced to two months imprisonment for Post Office frauds, when he produced a .22 automatic of Continental make. Before police officers could interfere a shot was fired and he collapsed. He had waited for some time in a cell for the van to arrive to collect prisoners from the court. Usually all prisoners are searched immediately they are handed over to the gaoler after sentence and again on arrival at the prison. All police officers responsible for the custody of prisoners at the court were ordered to attend a preliminary inquiry at Old Street police station, and statements were taken. Senior officers from Scotland Yard who are conducting the inquiry, which is private, are trying to discover how a sentenced man could be in possession of a firearm.