Colin Wesley

DETAILS OF DEATH

Senior Constable Colin Wesley Brown was called to a dairy farm at Dayboro where an employee named Leonard Charles Spencer was suspected of having let 170 gallons of milk run out of a vat. The man had earlier been sacked and refused to leave his cottage. As Brown and the property owner Mr Grech were walking up the back steps to the house occupied by Spencer he appeared at a window overlooking the steps and pointed a .22 rifle out of the window shooting the police officer from a distance of three feet. The shot hit Brown in the middle of the chest. He staggered to the police vehicle and with the help of Grech obtained his service revolver and exchanged six shots with the gunman who fired back a number of shots. Brown also received a flesh wound under the left arm and there was gunshot damage to the police vehicle. Brown collapsed bleeding on the ground. Grech was able to overpower Spencer and tie him up. Brown was rushed to the Royal Brisbane Hospital but was dead on arrival. Spencer had been a patient at the Wolston Park psychiatric hospital for four years prior to working for Grech for seven months. He was found not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity but ordered back into psychiatric custody. Senior Constable Brown is buried in the Hemmant Cemetery.