INQUEST.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2080, 23 October 1880, Page 3

INQUEST.

An inquest was held at the Hospital yesterday afternoon on the body of Edmund Herbert Pearse, who died on Wednesday from the effects of a gunshot wound received while walking near the river at Avonside on September 28th. The Coroner, J. W. B. Coward, Esq., took his seat at two o’clock, and a jury was sworn in, of whom Mr John Inglia was chosen foreman. Henry Davenport, 18 ; Bobert Shand, 16, and Charles Yere Hodges, 16, who had been apprehended charged with shooting with intent to do the deceased bodily harm, but who are out on bail, were present. Mr Oowh'shaw attended to watch the case for Shand and Hodges ; Mr Bruges appeared on behalf of Davenport. Detective T. Neil produced the deposition of deceased taken before Mr G. L. Mellisb, 8.M., Christchurch, on the 16th inst., which read. It set out that deceased was walking by the river side on September 28th, between 10 and 11 a,m, when he beard shots fired and found himself struck in the inside of the left knee. He saw a boat on the river in which were three boys, one or others of whom fired the shots. Ho thought he bad been struck by a rifle bullet, but did not see any arms in the boat. He.called out to the boys, but they did not stop. He then limped off some distance, when finding himself seriously hurt and beginning to suffer a great deal, he called out loudly, somebody came, put him into a cart, and took him to the hospital. Henry Edward Matthews deposed to being in his father’s garden near Falairet’s, at Avonside, on the morning of September 28th last, at about a quarter to eleven. He then heard somebody cooeing loudly. Ho went towards the sound, and saw deceased, who was calling for help. When he reached deceased he found him on the ground; he pointed out to witness a hole in the left leg of his trousers, and said he had been shot. Witness went and got a cart, into which two men, who had come up, lifted deceased, who was then bleeding in the left leg. Deceased was then taken to the hospital. At about four o’clock in the afternoon witness saw Davenport, Shand and Hodges in a boat pulling towards town. He called to them, and told them about Pearse’s having been shot. Davenport said it could not have been done by them, as they went down the river earlier than the time named by witness as when the shooting occurred. Witness did not hear any firing in the morning. There was a large revolver in the boat. It was similar to that produced. [A large six-shot American revolver was here exhibited by the police.] Davenport told witness that the revolver would break a man’s leg at sixty yards. Ernest Albert Inwood, farm laborer, living at Mr Gibbs’, near Humbug Beach, Avonside, stated that he saw a boat go down the river at about half-past ten or eleven o’clock on the morning of September 28th. There were three lads on board, whom be was too far off to identify. He, however, noticed the boat. He had heard shots fired shortly before in the direction from which the boat came. At about four in the afternoon, while working in a field near the river bank, he again heard shots, this time below him, down river. A bullet whistled past him, and he mounted a knoll to see better what was going on, when he saw the boat that had passed in the morning with, he believed, the same boys in her. Smoko was rising from the boat as from recently discharged firearms, and the boys said something which he could not make out. They were about ten chains—22o yards—away. Detective John Neill deposed that on September 29th be went to Shand, who told him that he, Davenport and Hodges were down the river in a boat on the previous day. Davenport had a pistol, and they were firing it. Witness saw Davenport on the 30tb, and he admitted the truth of Sband’s story. The revolver produced would send a ball about 200 yards. Witness produced a bullet extracted from the leg or deceased on the 19Lh instant. It fitted the revolver now on view.

William Hill, a constable stationed at Bingsland—Got the revolver from Davenport on September 30tb, and a cartridge made to be used in the revolver. Davenport admitted using the revolver on the river on the morning of the shooting. E. Brown, dresser at the hospital, deposed to extracting from the leg of deceased the bullet produced. Mr Davies, house surgeon at the hospital, stated the facts as to the admission of deceased into the hospital, his progress while there, and his death. Death resulted from the gunshot wound received by deceased. W. H. Symes, M.D., assisted the house surgeon to make a post mortem examination of the body of deceased, the result satisfied him that death was the result of the shot in deceased’s knee.

In answer to the foreman, witness said that if amputation had been resorted to, death would have ensued all the same.

Each of the boys made statements, the substance of which was that Davenport and Hodges had fired off the pistol at or about the time and place of the shooting by which Pearse was wounded. They all agreed that Shand did not fire until long afterwards. They declared that the firing had been merely for amusement, and they bad no idea that had been hit until told so by Matthews. This concluded the evidence. The jury then retired, and after on absence of nearly an hour, returned with a verdict to the effect that deceased was killed by a bullet wound in the left knee, but the evidence did not disclose by whom the said bullet was fired.