DRAMATIC TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 139, 10 December 1930, Page 11

DRAMATIC TRIAL

'•I AM PERFECTLY JNNOCEMT"-

(From "The Post's" Reprcsentativr) SYDNEY, 4th December. Kiuhard Buckley, whose dra.matie trial ended in Melbourne last week with his sentence to death for the murder of Mr. T. B. V. Berriman, bank manager, who was shot dead at Glenfcrrie seven years ago, is one of the worst criminals Australia has known. Hardened though he may be, Bwckley's face blanched when ho heard the verdict, and when asked whether he had anything to say he replied: "'The circumstances were against me. I am perfectly innocent of this crime.-" He swayed_ when sentence was passed upon him, signifying the finish of a most dramatic trial. Already one man —Angus Murray— an associate of Buckley, hadL been hanged for the crime for which Buckley himself was convicted. The evidence was that Murray did not fire the fatal shot, but that Buakley did, and remarkable public demotnstrations followed tho conviction of Murray. Crowds knelt outside the gaol on the morning he was hanged. If Buckley goes to his death, which is unlikely seeing that a Labour Government is now in power in Victoria, the scenes are not likely to be repea.ted. The crime had been almost forgotten when Buckley was taken from the hiding place that had given him shelter for seven years. At least one other man associated with Buckley in crime paid the extreme penalty. This was John Jackson, who'was convicted fior the murder of Constable M'Grath at the Melbourne Trades Hall in Isls. Buckley, who received six years for his share in the Trades Hall crime, and Jackson entered the hall for the purpose of robbing an office. They conducted a running revolver fight with the police in the dark. Both Jackson and Buckley were wouaded and a constable was shot de-ad. It has been stated that after the constable was shot, and Buckley and Jackson were trapped in the building, they tossed a coin as .to which of them would take the blame for the shooting of the policeman. Jackson lost—and duly paid the penalty. This incident has only just been revealed by a man who knew Buckley well in and out of gaol. Who fired the fatal shot, it is said, was never definitely established. Buckley has had serveral aliases, and he was first heard of by the Australian police in April, 18TO, when he was sentenced to two months in gaol for assault. In ISB2 he was fined for, larceny, and three years later he' got three months on each of two charges for assault. In the following year he went back to gaol for 12 months for having illegally used a horse, and at the same time he got three months for having attempted to pass tobacco to a prisoner, and also for having assaulted a constable. There was- another sentence of three m oaths in 1887 for larceny. His first long term was three years'hard labour in 1888 for burglary, and at tho same time he got six months —the first month in solitary confinement—for malicious wounding. Another conviction for burglary was recorded against him in 1891. At the same sitting he was convicted of receiving, and the joint penalty on that occasion was five years' hard labour, with two weeks in solitary confinement. Buckley was not heard of again for six years, when, for having wounded with intent to do grievous bodily harm, he was sentenced to twelve months' hard labour with an added four years for receiving. His next sentence was two years for having had housebre'aking implements in his possession. Then followed a sentence of six years, with hard labour, including ten weeks of solitary confinement, for having broken into a counting house. Thus sentences totalling 24 years were recorded against him up to 1897. Then 18 years went by before he was heard of again. Again he was captured in a counting house, and on the charge that he intended to commit a felony he was sentenced to six years in gaol, and declared an habitual criminal. He served a jiumboa- of years in gaol and was allowed out on parole in January, 1922. It was on Bth October, 1923,' that Mr. Bevviinan was murdered. Donovan was found guilty of the murder of a. widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Little, oh her farm near Stratford, in Gippsland, last October.