Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 113
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BROKEN HILL
GAO L
COOL FOR CARS
Jim Skidmore
I L L E GA L U S E O F A M O T O R C A R
Jim Skidmore, a 34 year old station hand from Sydney, was
photographed at Broken Hill Gaol on 31 May 1927 while serving
a sentence of six months hard labour for the illegal use of a
motor car.
Skidmore and his co-accused, Roy Davidson, aged 39 — also
a station hand — appeared before Magistrate Atkinson at Tilpa
Police Court on 25 February 1927. The Court heard evidence
from the owner of the car, Gregory Newman, and local policeman
Constable Curtis, that the two men had driven the car — a
Buick — across the Darling River and were trying to change
gears when intercepted.
Skidmore and Davidson claimed that they thought the car
was from Dunlop Station, a 420,000 hectare sheep property once
owned by Sir Samuel McCaughey and his brothers that fronted
the Darling River near Louth. The duo said that they had been
promised a lift in the vehicle to Broken Hill and were only
‘trying’ the engine when stopped by police. In an attempt to
prove his familiarity of motor cars in support of this line of
defence involving mechanical workings, Skidmore told the
magistrate that he knew and had driven every make of car. The
magistrate, however, gave this short shrift. How had Skidmore
not noticed that the car in question was a Buick, while the
vehicle from Dunlop Station was an Essex? Left with no
recourse, Davidson pleaded guilty. Skidmore, on the other
hand, pleaded not guilty. Magistrate Atkinson rejected his
plea and remanded the men to appear in court for sentencing
the following week.
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