ROOFTOP PURSUIT OF LONDON GUNMAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5289, 30 December 1946, Page 5

ROOFTOP PURSUIT OF LONDON GUNMAN

(Press Assn.-

CONSTABLE WOUNOED YOUNG MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER

-Rec. 9.80 p.m.)

LONDON, Dec. 28. A remarkable battle began when two plainclothes policemen chased a man whom they suspected. The man pulled out a gun in the middle of the busy shopping centre and fired at people trying to help the detectives to stop him. The fugitive dived through the dcorway of a cafe and went to the roof, pursued by .detectives and others who joined the chase. The first of the police to arrive were unarmed, including Constable A. Rowswell, who led the chase across the roof. The man fired and Constable Rowswell fell with a bullet wound in the eye. By that time radio cars-had called pclice reinforcements and the block oi buildings was surrounded. "The man was finally overpowered on the roof by armed police and bundled into a police van. Constable Rowswell was admitted to hospital unconscious. The chase lasted 70 minutes. The man's dash through streets and buildings was aecompanied by the screams of women. The man sought refuge on the roof of a five-storey private hotel. He broke a skyiight and rushed through the house, breaking open doors and o"""erturning cages of prize birds, with the police 3'ust behind him. A Jamaican airman, Aloysius Abbott, fcr whose fatal shooting* on Deeember 25 detectives were seeking ti e gunman, was shot three times. Ti c gunman had struck a waitress in a cafe because she was serving coloured men first. Abbott threw the gunman out of the cafe, and shots were fired while Abbott was standing in the doorway. A dramatic battle is being "waged in the operating room of the Royal Free Hospital, to save Constable Powswell's eyesight. The shot struck him a glancing blow across the eye. Six foot three inches in height, the constable holds ten commendations from the Commissioner of Police, aiso the British Empire Medal. He was awarded the Royal Humane Society eertificate for rescuing women from drowning at Sheerness in 1938. Frederick Rowland Westbrook, aged '27, of no fixed address, was charged in the Tottenham Court Road police station with murdering Aloysius Abbott, the Jamaican airci'aftman who was found shot dead outside a cafe in New Cavendish Street.