SHOTS IN COURT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1938, Page 7

SHOTS IN COURT

STUDENT VENDETTA WEST INDIANS DEFENDANTS. ONLY ONE MAN INJURED. Pistol shots were fired in Clerkenwell Police Court, England, and a defendant —a British West Indian-j-was injured, but not seriously. The magistrate, Mr Walter Hedley. K.C., had almost completed his afternoon list of summonses and only a fewpersons remained in Court when the incident occurred. ■ • . The case which the magistrate had just dealt with when the. shots were fired was one in which Richard Henriques. aged 24, an engineering student, of* Albert Street, N.W.I, had brought .summonses for assault against thrcle other men, all four being British West Indians. The defendants were Mr C. Alakija, a medical practitioner,' of Doughty Street, W.C.; Mr L. Coker, a medical student, of South Villas, Camden Square, N.W.I, and Mr Ladi Moore, a law student, of the same address ~as Coker. TIME OF ALLEGED’ ASSAULTS. ; In reply to the plaintiff’s statement that the assaults took plat \ last November, .the magistrate’s cleri .indicated that the summonses said t>>v took place in June. The plaintiff_sa he had made a mistake. Asked by the magistrate why he delayed so long in taking proceeding he mumbled a reply which was inau-. dible at the press desk. Mr Hedley said that the summonses were out of time. He annouhced that they would according be dismissed.," 1 There was a slight pause and Henriques was then seen to put his right hand quickly into one of his pockets. An automatic pistol was pointed at the three defendants and three shots rang out in rapid succession. People in Court were apparently too much taken by surprise to do more than, in Several cases, duck their heads. Detective-Sergeants Crouchen and Bellamy, who were seated near the witness-box, and Police-Constable Greenaway, the assistant warrant offi-cer,‘-who had been standing to the left of the defendants, ran forward, but Henriques waited quietly for them. DEFENDANT INJURED. After the 'three shots had been fired Alakija was seen peering over' the ledge in front of the witness-box, and Coker was found assisting Moore, who had been injured. Moore was conscious, but evidently in pain. The first shot struck the desk a few inches in front of Inspector Parsons, who was sitting in his place as officer on duty close to the witness-box. The summons list which had been placed on the desk by Police-Constable Greenaway had a hole torn in it, and the desk was dented, the shot having been deflected to the wall at the back of the Court over the public seats. The other (wo shots drilled holes side by side in the oak partition behind which the defendants were standing. Moore had a flesh wound in the left thigh. He was taken to the Royal Free Hospital and detained there. Later Richard Henriques was charged at Clerkenwell Police Station with the attempted murder of Ladi Moore.