South Yorkshire Times, May 6th, 1944
Mexborough Home Guard’s Suicide
On Tuesday, while an exhibition of Home Guard weapons in Mexborough was open in Mexborough Home Guards Headquarters, and the band of the York and Lancaster Regiment was concluding a programme of music outside, a shot rang out, and a Home Guard Lieutenant, John Platt (46), stone hand of 50, Alexandra Road, Mexborough, was found shot through the head, on a balcony in the upper part of the building.
This tragic incident, which marred the fourth day of Mexborough’s Salute the Soldier Week, in connection with which the exhibition had been arranged, was the subject of an inquest at the Montagu Hospital yesterday (Thursday) when the Doncaster District Coroner (Mr. W. H. Carlile) recorded a verdict of “suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed).”
The Coroner said “I think it must be obvious that this wound was self-inflicted. There is a history that he has suffered, as his wife has said, from pains in the head, especially over the last few weeks. I think there can be no doubt that he was seized with a sudden impulse and shot himself.” Whether there was any connection with a wound he suffered in the last war, he was unable to say. Lily Bowerman, 5, Beaumont Avenue, Roundhay Park, Leeds, said Platt was her son-in-law and was employed as a stone hand by the South Yorkshire Times Company Ltd., Mexborough. She last saw him alive at Christmas, when he was in fairly good health. He suffered with his nerves as a result of a head wound contracted in the last war.
Muriel Alice Platt, 50, Alexandra Road, Mexborough, said her husband had been very ill for the last six weeks, suffering with his head and with gastritis and had been off work for three weeks.