BOY’S TERRIBLE DEED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3903, 5 February 1929, Page 3

BOY’S TERRIBLE DEED.

SHOOTS YOUNG BROTHER, CHRISTMAS EVE. TRAGEDY. Sydney, January 24. An extraordinary story was told at an inquest held in Melbourne on the death of Jack Pope, aged seven years, who was shot through the heart at his home in Melbourne on Christmas Eve. His brother, Phillip Pope, aged 13 years 11 months, was committed for trial on a charge of murder. The mother of the two children, Cora Pope, said that on the morning of Christmas, Eve she had to go into the city. She had seven children, and she left them At home. When she arrived back at four o’clock in the afternoon she was met at the gate by one of her daughters, who told her not to go inside. However, she went in and she found Jack lying in the passage, and she was told that he had been shot. The gun which used to hang from a hook in the wall was still there. Phillip, who had been undergoing treatment for nervous disorder for some time, was given to wandering. The father said that the gun could easily have been reached by the boy with the aid of a chair. He had left the gun in a handy position because there had been disturbances among his fowls. Hilda Pope, a sister of the two boys, said that in the morning Jack and Phillip Had a dirt fight. After dinner Jack went into the passage, where he began to read a comic paper. Phillip asked him to go out, but he refused. Phillip then went inside to get an apple, and when lie came out he said he was going to the station to meet his -mother. Hilda went inside and sawtJaek lying in the passage dead. She did not hear the gun fired. According to Senior-Detective O’Keefe Phillip made the following statement: “About a quarter past one in the afternoon Jack went into the passage and began to read a comic paper. I said to him, ‘lOome along and have a game of hiding.’ He said, ‘Righto, as soon as I finish this sl;ory.’ I said, ‘Come now or I will make you.’ He said, ‘You won’t,’ and I said, ‘I will.’ I went into my father’s bedroom, stepped on to the bed and took down the gun. I ‘broke’ the gun and I saw that there was a cartridge in the right barrel. I shut the gun and then pulled back the trigger. Jack was still sitting on the chair in the passage.

“I called out, ‘Hands up.’ Jack stood up and I took aim at his left breast. He then stepped toward me and I said, ‘Stand back or I will shoot.’ He said, ‘No, I won’t.’ I pulled the trigger and Jack fell to the floor. My reason for shooting Jack Avas that he Avas ahvays ‘skiting’ that he could beat me at playing cricket, and Avhen he Avould not come out to play I made up my mind to shoot him. Between one and tAVO months ago I told Detective McPhee that I AA'ould shoot my father and then drown myself, as he had said that lie Avould bash one of our heads in AA r hen lie got wild.” The detective said that he had come to the conclusion that Phillip Avas not mentally sound.

In a statement to the coroner Phillip said that he did not “break” the gun. Detectives McP'hee and O’Keefe said that they would 'knock his head against a wall if he did not say that he “broke” the gun. He just looked down the barrel, cocked the trigger, and pulled it. He ran away because lie could not face his mother. He did not tell Detective McPhee that he would .kill his father.

The coroner said that he would not be justified in assuming that the boy did not realise the seriousness of bis act.