Confronting Murderous Men, page 27
Wasting little time, the Executive Council met on 10 May 1943 and commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment. The mercy recommendation by the jury had probably been another based on age. He was fortunate as the taste for hanging was waning. Four people were later hanged in Victoria before the death penalty was abolished in 1975.
Searle made much of his mistake, the ‘grudge’ he held and his state of sobriety. It made no difference that he mistakenly shot the wrong constable. To shoot anyone in these circumstances was unpardonable. His grudge, if based on fact during another bout of drunkenness, far outweighed his response some two years after the event. It would not be provocation leading to a justified response even closer to the time in which it occurred. Some witnesses told of him being affected by alcohol on the night in question, and others said he was sober. The interviewing police said so. The two women from Balwyn said he was not affected and Costello the taxi driver said he was sober and, up to a point, courteous.
The question one might find most pressing was why did Searle go to the house in Buckingham Street in the afternoon of 1 March and leave the weapon there? Why did he collect it later that evening in the taxi? He claimed it was because he wanted it to go shooting rabbits on the following Saturday, which was six days hence. It is clear he had a plan well before it was executed, which probably stemmed from him seeing Constable Teitz at the hotel. The plan was overreach with inexplicable malevolence that was probably acted out with all the stupidity he could muster while his inhibitions were dulled by booze.
Searle was released on a four-year bond on 6 July 1959. He married and moved to Tasmania, where he died in 1987.
Edith Jones lived for 40 years without her husband and died in 1983 at 80 years of age.
CHAPTER 20
1942
Constable George William Matthews
Sydney, New South Wales
George William Matthews
George Matthews left his parents’ home in 1939 to join the police force. He was just 22 years old and had spent his short life in Lithgow, west of the Great Divide, then a coal mining town of significance. His father, also George, was a miner and his mother Mary Kathleen was part of the well-known Luchetti family. Policing would be a welcome move away from the prospect of being a miner, but Matthews’ life would turn on a sixpence, with disastrous results.
Matthews performed general duties, working out of Clarence Street station. A major issue confronting police in the city in the war years was street fighting and brawling and 1942 seemed to have been a particularly busy one, with brawling, mostly alcohol fuelled, a regular occurrence. Allied servicemen massed in the city and became targets of angst, theft and robbery. Prostitutes robbed them, too, and in this mix, tempers flared and fights erupted.
On the evening of 16 May 1942, Constable Matthews and Constable Cleveland Emslie were patrolling on foot and in plainclothes near Campbell Street, Haymarket. Their focus was on unruly behaviour and they would soon walk right into it. They saw an elderly man lying on the footpath being kicked about the head and body by two men. The crowd watching on seemed to be enjoying the entertainment. As the constables fought their way through the throng to reach the man, they were punched and jostled by the crowd, estimated to be about 200-strong, which included soldiers.
When the officers reached the louts kicking the man, brothers 26-year-old Harold and 30-year-old Stanley Brown fought with Matthews and Emslie, punching and kicking them to encouraging shouts from the crowd of ‘Put the boot in!’ They managed to handcuff the brothers together as they continued to struggle. A crippled man on crutches called, ‘Don’t let the coppers take them.’ Wanting part of the action, he discarded his crutches and jumped onto the back of Emslie. Police reinforcements soon arrived and the crowd began to disperse, their courage waning with the ever-increasing police numbers. In the melee, the Brown brothers ran off and the crippled man also made good his escape. Emslie had sustained a cut lip and a knee injury and Matthews had a fractured nose and an eye socket injury. Both were taken to Sydney Hospital, where they were treated, then allowed to leave.
Other police went to a house in Erskineville, where they located the Browns, each still wearing a half of the now parted handcuffs. The links had been filed through, but the cuffs themselves had remained secure. They were arrested and taken back to Central police station, where they were charged with riotous behaviour, resisting arrest and maliciously damaging the handcuffs.
Constable Emslie remained on sick report until fit enough to resume duty. Constable Matthews remained off duty as his condition worsened. He continued to suffer from the facial fracture and though treated again at Sydney Hospital, he was not well enough to return to duty. He died at Sydney Hospital on 31 July 1943. He was 26 years of age and his 22-year-old wife, Gladys May (nee Lewis), had not long before given birth to their child, Noel. They had been married for two years.
Constable Matthews developed suppurative meningitis, also known as bacterial meningitis, which caused his death. The coroner dispensed with an inquest, which is a pity as it may have thrown more light on those responsible for his death. However, it would not have helped prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent, had they been identified, because his death occurred outside the then statutory limitation of a year and a day.
Like the death of his colleague, Constable Albert Michael (see Chapter 4), who died from injuries received in a brawl in 1923–24 which developed into acute endocarditis, a simple peace-keeping function had cut short Constable George Matthews’ life. There were no bullets, but the affray was very dangerous as demonstrated by its outcome.
The Lithgow Mercury acknowledged the death of one of the town’s own:
The death occurred in the Sydney Hospital on Saturday of Const. George William Matthews, a former Lithgow resident, and son of Mr and Mrs G Mathews, of Vale Road. He was attached to No 1 police station, Clarence Street, Sydney. Sympathy will be extended to the parents and widow, son and three sisters. Const. G Workman, of Lithgow police, is a brother-in-law.
Two days later the paper announced:
The funeral of the late Const. George William Matthews, of Sydney and a former Lithgow resident, who died in Sydney Hospital on Saturday, took place on Monday afternoon, moving from Ashfield to the Catholic cemetery, Rookwood. Deceased was given a full police funeral, members of the metropolitan force marching in front of the hearse. Pallbearers were his depot mates…
It seems the family were flexible with the spelling of their surname, the parents traditionally spelling it Mathews and Constable Matthews, thus. Perhaps they tired of correcting it.
* * *
Gladys Matthews remarried in 1949, to farmer John Bransdon. They lived at Rollands Plains, west of Port Macquarie, with Noel. On 28 February 1953, Noel, now 10 years old, was swimming in the Port Macquarie Baths, with about 30 others, mostly children, when an older child noticed him missing. He was recovered from the bottom of the pool and despite efforts to resuscitate him he could not be revived. He had drowned, silently as children do, in 140 centimetres of water. George Matthews’ last legacy was lost and Gladys had lost not only her child but her only tangible link with her former life.
CHAPTER 21
1946
Detective Constable Carl Roe KPM
Claremont, Western Australia
Carl Roe
Sydney Hammond, by all accounts was a careless thief as his arrests would attest. He was also a careless husband, but more of that later. Hammond was born in 1920 at Hull, Yorkshire, and had come to Western Australia with his parents in 1928. On the voyage he allegedly suffered a head injury, which would become useful later in life to explain away his bad behaviour. He attended schools at Swanbourne, Claremont and Mosman Park, and after leaving, was taught to be a spray painter by his father. Harry Hammond would give a glowing account of his son’s attributes to the press in 1946, telling all who would listen that Sydney was a good boy at home, never smoked, gambled or drank alcohol. He played the piano and had sung in the church choir as a lad. He served as an orderly in the RAAF for two years during the war until deemed medically unfit for further service, apparently due to problems with his old head injury.
He married Kathleen about 1942, and they had a daughter. Sydney began to stray, and the only time Kathleen could be sure of his fidelity and whereabouts was during his shortish forays to Fremantle Gaol, when caught red-handed with other people’s property. Women were a favoured target, as handbags were easy picking from the vulnerable. He couldn’t help himself. It was the blackouts from the head injury it seemed, as he explained to a magistrate in 1940, ‘Something seems to come over me. I do not know what makes me do these things.’ Kathleen had had enough and filed for divorce, citing Cecilia Dursley Warwick as co-respondent. The crunch came when Kathleen found Cecilia in her home bathing her baby. She was granted a divorce, allowing Sydney to marry Cecilia. Kathleen wouldn’t yet know how fortunate the move would prove to be.
The new couple lived pretty high off the hog, aided no doubt by other people’s giving ways, albeit without their knowledge. Sydney bought himself a motorbike, a Standard tourer and an expensive MG sports car, which he liked to drive at speed around the neighbourhood. But it was a company utility he drove into a bus at East Perth in 1942 that landed him in hospital with facial injuries.
It all came to a screeching halt on 21 October 1946 when Detective Constable Carl Roe, an active and intrepid investigator, closed on Hammond’s heels. He had suspected him of being responsible for a spate of breaking and stealing offences in and around the city. Detective Roe had spent four years at the Criminal Investigation Branch in Perth, and for the past two months had been attached to Subiaco CIB. That evening, with Detective Sergeant Alfred Parker, Roe went to a flat at Bay View Terrace, Claremont, and interviewed Hammond. He was arrested, searched and taken to Claremont police station.
Hammond asked to see his wife, who had no money and was not well enough to work. He told them of a garage he rented where they would find stolen property, which he would show them if they allowed him to see his wife. The detectives agreed and returned Hammond to the garage. Realising not all the property was there, the detectives were told there was another where more could be found and he would show it to them, if he was allowed to see his wife. When he was taken home, he embraced his wife and asked to be alone with her for five minutes, but his request was denied. He asked for some money for his wife and she was given £5 previously taken from him when searched. Cecilia Hammond was escorted from the premises by Roe, who helped her carry her baby to her car.
As the men searched Hammond’s garage, Cecilia Hammond appeared and claimed she had stalled the car in Bay View Terrace and needed help to crank start it. Detective Roe agreed to take Hammond and his wife to start the car, leaving Parker at the garage. Roe and the Hammonds sat in the back seat of the police car driven by Constable Sexton McCulloch. Detective Roe walked with Hammond to the car and stood with him as he cranked the handle and started it. Both men returned to the police car and resumed their positions. As soon as Constable McCulloch started to move off, Hammond pressed a small .22 calibre pistol into Detective Roe’s back and fired. The first bullet tore into Roe’s back and severed an artery near his heart. Roe lashed out at Hammond exclaiming, ‘Oh! You lousy bastard,’ before a second shot struck him in the right shoe wounding his large toe. A third shot missed. Hammond jumped from the slowly moving car and ran towards his car, where his wife was waiting. Detective Roe ran after him for about 50 metres and as he closed on Hammond, he was fired at again, one bullet striking him in the right side of his chest and another entering his left temple. He fell to the roadway, dead. At his wife’s urging to ‘come quick’, Hammond entered the driver’s seat and drove off.
Constable McCulloch ran to Roe’s aid, but as there was nothing he could do for him, he sped back to the garage with his horn blaring and, with Detective Sergeant Parker, rushed to Claremont police station to obtain weapons and reinforcements. They returned to find Roe lying face down in the grass and a doctor with his body, which was later removed to Royal Perth Hospital.
Detective Roe, though unarmed and mortally wounded, chased his murderer in an attempt to detain him. He was wounded so severely he was close to death, but Hammond fired again and the bullet to Roe’s head left no doubt he would die. Carl Roe had been due to finish his shift at 6 pm the day he was killed but told his commanding officer, Inspector Lewis, he wanted to work on, saying, ‘I’ve got a line I think will put me on the right track.’ His information was correct – and deadly.
Detective Constable Roe was farewelled at Karrakatta Cemetery on 23 October 1946 in the presence of a large crowd including every commissioner of police throughout Australia and representatives from Scotland Yard, all of whom were attending a conference in Perth. Mrs Roe senior remained stoic. She had lost her husband in 1942, and their son, Flying Officer Alan Roe, who flew with the RAAF and RAF, who was killed on active service in 1945. Carl and Lesley Roe married in 1937 and their only child, Geoffrey was born in 1940. Carl Roe was born at Northam, Western Australia in 1912 and was 34 years of age when he was killed. Attending schools at Northam and Guildford Grammar, he excelled in athletics and football. He was a partner in a small business at Milling in the wheatbelt before joining the police force in 1936 and working at Katanning, Criminal Investigation Branch at Perth and latterly, at Subiaco.
* * *
A manhunt began immediately word was received of the tragedy and the first thing detectives did was make a thorough search of Hammond’s flat, where they found addresses for a number of associates. They also found a .32 calibre revolver. The addresses were systematically visited and while driving along Goderich Street, East Perth, Detective Sergeant Parker caught a glimpse of movement as Hammond took cover behind a tree in Victoria Square. Both the Hammonds were arrested by Parker, Detective Donovan and Constable Victor Waltham. Sydney Hammond was still in possession of the .22 calibre pistol, which was fully loaded. Both were charged with the murder of Carl Roe. Their baby was taken into care by welfare authorities. One wonders what Waltham may have thought of the events, remembering his own shooting by Alwyn Indich at Herne Hill in 1938 (see Chapter 15).
The publicity surrounding the Hammonds’ arrest and photographs of them published in the newspapers led to a further breakthrough for the owners of stolen property when Leading Aircraftman Corrie Ivor Arnold of Swanbourne came forward. He had recognised Hammond as a man he knew as Hartley, who had rented a shed from him for storage. Also found in the shed was a 6.35-millimetre automatic pistol.
An inquest into the death of Detective Roe in November 1946 heard evidence from Cecilia Hammond taken from her statement made shortly after her arrest. She told the police she knew her husband had a revolver in their flat and when the police came to question her husband about his crimes, she hid it under the bath so it would not be found. Her husband had whispered to her, ‘Where is the revolver?’ She understood this to mean he wanted it. When the detectives took her husband away to the garage she retrieved the weapon, loaded it and put it into the right-hand pocket of her coat. When the police came with her husband to start her car she kept her right hand in the coat pocket so that her husband would understand that she had the weapon and he looked as if he understood. As they sat in the police car taking them back to her allegedly stalled car, her husband placed his arm around her back and took the pistol from her pocket.
After she heard the shots and her husband had returned to the car he said, ‘I think I have killed him. I’m not sure, but I hope I haven’t killed him. It’ll be murder if I’ve killed him. I hope I didn’t.’ Her husband drove to a vacant block and stopped, hidden by long grass, where she gave him further bullets from her pocket and he loaded the pistol. He said, ‘I won’t be caught alive. I’ll kill myself.’
They walked along the railway line to Perth, carrying the baby between them, arriving at 5 am, where they were arrested. She added that her husband often would go out alone and return before midnight with property she knew he had stolen. He had told her several times that he broke into places and stole property.
Sydney Hammond
Cecilia Dursley Hammond
Sydney Hammond also made a statement after his arrest. He explained the visit of the police to his flat and how he spoke to his wife, whispering, ‘Bring my revolver to the garage and I’ll try to frighten them and get away.’ He couldn’t be sure if his wife had given him the revolver when they were in the car or when he was about to crank the car. When he got into the police car with Roe beside him he had the revolver in his right hand. It was a small palm-type weapon. He remembered the revolver exploding, but couldn’t remember if he pointed it at Roe, but he must have done so. He then opened the nearside door and jumped out as the car was moving slowly. He ran around the corner into Victoria Avenue and looked to see Detective Roe running behind him. He still had the revolver but could not remember firing it at Roe, but the revolver seemed to explode. He did not see the detective fall but ran back to his car… He added that he did not intend to hurt Detective Roe. He only wished to threaten him with the revolver and make good his escape.
The coroner found that Carl Roe died as the result of bullet wounds inflicted by Sydney Hammond and that he was wilfully murdered by Sydney Hammond and Cecilia Dursley Hammond. Both were committed for trial at the next sittings of the Criminal Court. Sixty charges of breaking, entering and stealing and associated matters against Sydney Hammond were adjourned.
On 18 November 1946, Sydney and Cecilia Dursley Hammond stood trial at the Criminal Court, Perth, before Chief Justice Sir John Dwyer. Crown prosecutor Neville outlined to the jury the facts of the case in his opening address. He told of the arrest of Sydney Hammond and his request to be left alone with his wife being refused. He explained how the weapon had been handed by Cecilia to her husband under the subterfuge of a stalled vehicle.
