SHOT IN HOSPITAL,

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1919, Page 3

SHOT IN HOSPITAL,

LONDON, December 5,

A pathetic affair took plage op Saturday night at the Lntchmcre Hous ( > military hospital for mental cases, Ham Common, Richmond .

Lieutenant Sidney Hume, R.A.F., who had been an inmate of the hospital since last August when he was repatriated from Germany, shot and killed Private Robert Aldridge, R.A.M.C., one of the orderlies.

About 10.30 p.m., when most of the patients were asleep, Lieutenant Ilume got out of bed in his ward and rang for an orderly. Private 4»ldridge responded to the ea}l, and as soon as he entered the ward Lieutenant Hume, who was standing near his bod dressed in his pyjamas, khaki dressing-gown and boots, tired a. revolver. The bullet entered the orderly’s head and he died immediately.

The sound of the shot woke everybody and an alarm was raised, but by the time assistance arrived, Lieutenant Hume had slipped away, escaped across the common, and was lost to sight. Two or three hours later a policeman, saw him wandering along the Broadway at Hammersmith, still clad in the scanty attire lie wore on leaving the hospital and recognising him as the man whose description had been circulated arrested him and took a loaded revolver from a pocket in his dress-gown. Lntjor he was iormally charged with murder by Detective-In-spectors Perrier and Heard. It is thought that Lieutenant Hume, whose parents live in London, rode in an omnibus from Richmond, at least part of the way to Hammersmith. How he obtained tbe revolver is not known. [fe will bo brought up at Kingston Police Court when the state of bis health will he explained to Ihe Magistrate.