DEATH IN A LOCK-UP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 867, 19 July 1910, Page 3

DEATH IN A LOCK-UP.

Napier, July 17

The circumstances surrounding; the death of Alexander Drysdale Matheson, aged 51 years, who died at the Napier Hospital on Thursday, were enquired into yesterday by Mr McCarthy, coroner, and a jury. The deceased (whose name was previously given as Maddison) was a single man and a ship’s carpenter. He was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland, and his mother lives at Konini. He had been in Napier for the past two months, and during that period worked off and on as a wharf labourer. He was given to drink. He resisted when being removed from the police station to the cells on a charge of drunkenness. There was no room in the narrow passage for two constables to handle him. Constable Richard Ryan had charge of Matheson, and they fell together, Matheson’s spine being injured. When Matheson was questioned at the hospital by Inspector Dwyer he said he remembered the constable pressing his head forward and pressing on it. He could not sign his statement, as his hands were paralysed. Constable Ryan deposed that at the door leading to the lock-up Matheson raised his arms, apparently to catch the top of the door, and then slipped from the top step, which was wet from rain.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death, and held Constable Ryan blameless. They added a rider that in their opinion the passageway where the accident

took place should be widened, or Y another doorway provided leading from the watchhouse to the cells.