With some of the white community alarmed by these events, a punitive expedition was proposed by Northern Territory Police to "teach the blacks a lesson".
However, it was feared that a punitive expedition would lead to an event similar to the 1928 Coniston massacre (when a number of innocent Aboriginal people were killed by a white patrol group after a murder).
A party from the Church Missionary Society travelled to Arnhem Land and persuaded Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda and three other men, sons of a Yolngu elder, Wonggu, to return to Darwin with them for trial.
On appeal to the High Court of Australia, in a case known as Tuckiar v The King, Dhakiyarr's sentence was quashed in November 1934, and he was released from jail, but disappeared on his way home.
[3] In 1928, during a previous punitive expedition in the Northern Territory, police had killed up to 200 Aboriginal men, women and children; an event known as the Coniston massacre, and many feared another such slaughter.
They travelled to Arnhem Land and persuaded Dhakiyarr and three other men, who were sons of a Yolngu elder, Wonggu, to return to Darwin with them for trial.
[3] Dhakiyarr was arrested and put in Fannie Bay Gaol, but there were many delays before the cases could be brought to trial, owing mostly to lack of prosecution witnesses.
On 29–30 October 1934 the appeal was heard at the High Court of Australia in Melbourne, in a case known as Tuckiar v the King, Dhakiyarr's and the three other Yolngu men's sentences were quashed after numerous irregularities in the first trial were pointed out.[17][18][19][6]: Chpt.
After a seven months’ investigation, he persuaded the Federal Government to free the three men convicted of the killings and returned with them to their own country, living for over a year with their people, documenting their culture.
[citation needed] In the course of his negotiations, he wrote of Wonggu sending a message stick to his sons, at that time in prison, to indicate a calling of a truce.