March 1999 Volume 80 Number 3 "serving the protectors"
Tangible Link to Slain Police Officer
By Brett Williams

“We were just going through her things and we happened to find the card. We didn’t even know she had it.”

The nephew of murdered police officer, John Holman, has donated his uncle’s 72-year-old warrant card to the Police Association of South Australia.

Warren Quinn presented the priceless memento to Police Association secretary, Andy Dunn, during a private afternoon meeting last month.

The slightly frayed yet well preserved card bears the signature of former commissioner, the late Brigadier General Sir Raymond Leane; and Holman’s crudely typewritten identification number - 10 - is still legible. The card’s leather backing - embossed with the words “South Australian Police” - shows virtually no signs of wear.

Mr Quinn and his partner, Judy Fraser, had only discovered the card last September after the death of Mr Quinn’s mother (Holman’s sister), Gwendoline.

“We were just going through her things and we happened to find the card,” Mrs Fraser said. “We didn’t even know she had it.”

Mr Quinn and Mrs Fraser feared that, in years to come, their descendants were unlikely to attach the same importance to the card as would future generations of police. They decided to offer it to the Police Association after attending a memorial service for Holman last December.

The service was held by the Police Association after it had funded the restoration of Holman’s West Terrace Cemetery gravesite.

Holman was gunned down in a city street after responding to a disturbance on 23 February, 1929. His attacker, John Stanley McGrath, had drawn a .32 semi automatic pistol, fired at Holman and fled.

Doctors removed a bullet from Holman’s lower abdomen but were unable to save him. He died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital from haemorrhage and shock.

Mr Quinn said that although he’d never met his police officer uncle he regarded him as “still part of the family”.

Mr Dunn said he was humbled by the handover of the card and would move immediately to have it framed and hung in the Police Association’s head-office boardroom.

“It’s all well and good to look at newspaper stories, but this was our former member’s warrant card - and that’s no small memento,” he said. “It’s a tangible piece of evidence of the fact that this person did exist.”

Mr Dunn said that the display of Holman’s warrant card in the Police Association building was the highest honour the union could afford its slain former member.

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