Patrick Joseph McCoy

Patrick McCoy was stabbed outside a pub in a fight on Saturday 6 June 1940.

A 29-year-old Indian fireman was tried for his murder but acquitted.

It was heard that the Indian fireman had been in the company of a number of other coloured seamen in the Mayfair Hotel in Park Lane on the Saturday night where there had been some dancing. It was said that there had been a number of people in the parlour and that they were roughly divided into Europeans and Indians.

It was then said that whilst some people were dancing, an English man dancing with an English girl had knocked a table and spilled the Indian fireman's beer and a disturbance then took place. It was said that when the man spilt his beer, the Indian seaman had put up his hands for some reason that was not clear, and that his actions were resented, which led to words and blows and that in a short time a free fight was in progress in the bar parlour and that even the legs of stools were brought into play.

It was heard then that Patrick McCoy went to the assistance of a man that was struggling with the Indian fireman and that the landlord then threw four men out, including Patrick McCoy and the Indian fireman.

However, the fighting continued in the street and it was said that a man saw the Indian fireman make an upward stab at Patrick McCoy who then fell. Another account stated that after the men were thrown out of the hotel that upon getting into the street Patrick McCoy collapsed, bleeding from the chest.

When Patrick McCoy was picked up he was dead.

He was later found to have had a stab wound that had penetrated his heart.

After the fight, it was said that the Indian fireman ran away. However, it was said that he later returned and said, 'I have hit a soldier'. It was also said that when he later saw another Indian from his ship that he said to him, 'I struck him with knife'.

The police later recovered a knife that the Indian fireman was said to have given to a friend later that night after the fight. When the knife was examined it was found to have blood on it that had the same blood group as Patrick McCoy's.

However, when the Indian fireman was questioned, he said, 'I never been stab him. The fight been inside, and I was out. I never did anything wrong'. He also denied giving the other Indian the knife.

The Indian fireman understood no English and at his trial it was heard that the case would take at least two days as every word of the evidence had to be interpreted into Hindustani.

The Indian fireman had been serving on the boat City of Cardiff.

Patrick McCoy had just returned from Dunkirk and was a driver in the RAMC and had been home on leave at the time.