CONSPIRACY CHARGE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 100, 8 February 1936, Page 5

CONSPIRACY CHARGE.

EX-DETECTIVE ON TRIAL. limited Press Association— Copyright) SYDNEY, This Day. The hearing was resumed yesterday in the Central Police. Court, of the case in which a former detective, John Ellis Findlay, aged 40, is charged with having conspired to pervert the course of justice by aiding a prisoner, William Campbell, to abscond from bail and escape to New Zealand. Accused is further chn-rgcdj u itli lu nek Pierce Coombe, aged 40, an agent, and Charles Bichard Tanser, aged oL>, an agent, with conspiring with William Campbell and "William Holland Makin and others to defraud several persons of largo sums of money. There was a similar charge against "William Campbell, aged 35, a clerk. Mr J. J. Desmond (counsel for Tanser). asked Campbell whether lie told si man named Noble that lie intended to take Tanser to England through tho Panama Canal and get him “bumped off” there for .to? Campbell: W : oll hardly. That becomes Noble. He spent some time in Callan Park (a mental institution). Cross-examined by Mr J. Kinkead, who is appearing lor Findlay, Campbell said that his wife had been approached on two occasions to suppress information or evidence in this case, [n fact she had been threatened. Pressed to state who had done so, Campbell replied: “Cosgroxo, secretary' of the Police Association.” Cosgrove was a former warder at a gaol. He claimed “to have a bit of a pull.” Mr Kinkead: You were at Bathurst Gaol. Did you tell your wife to go to Findlay and see whether you could get a transfer to some other prison ? ° Campbell: I told heFto tell him that he had better do something for me, otherwise I would spill tho beans. The case was adjourned till Monday.