SEQUEL TO MURDER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 331, 19 September 1932, Page 2

SEQUEL TO MURDER

SON LIABLE FOR REWARD TO MURDERER OF H5S FATHER SydneY, Sept. 2. A murder which, in some strange particulars anticipated the. still unsolved Saywell mystery, was perpetrates at Paddington in December last. Alexander Barrie, aged 85, ancl his wife, aged 80, people of some wealth and among the most respected eitizens in that part of Sydney, were murderously .ataeked hy two desperate young criminals of the- 'basher'" type. Barrie was killed on the spot, and his wife, who he courageously strove to protect, was so terrihly injurecl that she has never reeovered from the effects. The police at onee suggested to A Barrie, junior, the son of the victims, that he should olfer a reward of £100 for the capture of the criminals, it being understood that the Government wonld supplement the sum. Bariie duly signed a formal document offering the reward, and the Crown subsequently offered a further £200. Morton, one of the murderers, was arrested, bnt during the trial it transpired that Morton had been betrayed to the police by Slceen, his aeeomplice, who, to save himself, "turned King's evidence." Morton was duly sentenced to death, while. Slceen was released, and then poor Barrie found to his horror that £200 of the reward offered — including his own £100 — was to go to the informer Slceen, who had talcen an active part ih the murderous attaclc upon his father and mother. ; Barrie naturally finds this revolt- | ing to his own feelings, and at the same time he. regards it as extremely unwise from the point of view of pnblic policy. He is a man of means ancl it is not the loss of the money that troubles him. But he argues ) with great force that the. practice , of paying rewards to informers simj ply puts a premium on crime, and | he asks this unanswerahle question — ; why should the law aslc the son to , reward the man who helped lcill his father? Barrie is therefore holding out against the payment of any portion of the reward to Slceen. But the Crown Solicitor is pressing Barrie for a settlement and has even threatened legal action against him; while the Commissioner of Police is conten to say that as Mr. Barrie promised a reward, they loolc to him "as a man of honour." But surely there is good grouncl for Barrie's objection and a great public feeling here certainly supports his contention that to hand to this blood-stained ruffian any portion of the reward would be a preversion of justice and an outrage on the proi foundest instincts of human nature'.