BOURNEMOUTH MURDER CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 155, 3 July 1922, Page 10

BOURNEMOUTH MURDER CASE.

WHO SENT DECOY TELEGRAMS 7 |allavtay, chauffeur, charged. (From Our Own Correspondent.) ?j- LONDON, May 16. il After having been relegated for months the category of unsolved mysteries we ||iave at last a man brought into the 'dock on the charge of having murdered *srene Wilkine. The man is Thomas

•"Henry Allaway, a chauffeur. $£ Allaway showed every sign of nervousness, sitting with his mouth open and . Constantly moistening his lips with his Nevertheless he followed the *.s>roceedings closely, making notes on a with a pencil which he asked his Mr. Lawman, to give him. «r There was .a full bench of magistrates, ■.three of them being women. < ; Mr. Pearee, who represented the of Public Prosecutions, rapidly Outlined the facts already known of the j'ease. *jj There is no doubt the girl was mur"dered, the question they had to consider ;*was in what way they could connect the with the girl's death. 2c It will be recalled that there were §irther telegrams besides that which sumJSnoned Miss Wilkins to Bournemouth to JJber death, telegrams which mercifully jmissed their objective. The first point jwas that these telegrams were all sent :at times when Allaway was off duty, •before half-past ten, during the lunch ihour, and after five o'clock. i. His second point was that Allaway lhad been identified by two post office Jjpfficials, the girl in Bosconrbe, and the Jgirl in Bournemouth, to whom the fatal jfielegrams had been given for dispatch. jHis third point was the handwriting on |the telegrams, and experts had given it |«s their view that it was AllawayVs. «* A great deal of this ground was I*overed in tbe inquest into the death of Wilkins, but a" new witness has to |*be called, so says Mr. Pearee, who will | justify to seeing a woman answering to , JjMiss Wilkins" description arrive at j |3"sournemouth by the 4.30, had seen a car had noticed its driver -because of an concerning the blowing a,#ay Ijpf some papers; had further seen him |:drrve out of the station with a woman |*vhom> he believed was Miss Wilkins. ||This witness has also identified Allaway. •j* When the witnesses for the identification wefce called, .Mr. Lawman devoted his attention to shaking their conviction sjihat Allaway was the man, and this he —Jdi-J-With sonje_ success, reducing them to by saying they could not be "absolutely certain." Miss Diplock, the girl from Boscombe post office, made a sensation when she entered the court when on being asked if she saw the man who had given her the telegram she lbofked intently at the prisoner and 6aid, *1 am not positive." "To the best of your belief do you see him?" asked Mr. Pearee. "I think so, but I am not certain," she replied, and then Went on to say that when she said she recognised him at the police station she did not mean she recognised him as the sender of the telegram. She recognised him as a man she had seen and several times recently had served in the Boscombe post office. Miss Walters, the clerk at Bournemouth, was more positive, because she had queried the word "car" in the telegram sent to the Cavendish Bureau. She had asked all the men paraded to repeat the words "car will meet," and she said she identified the prisoner more by his voice than his face. But she, too, refused to 4*ffifcn*positively that" Allaway < was the man. _ The most positive was the railway signalman. He identified' the prisoner as the chauffeur who, on December 22, at 6.35, asked him at which platform the G. 45 train would arrive. This witness had seen a picture of Allaway in a Sunday paper, and had swne ±o the •police, it was only betore the court" met that he had seen and identified the prisoner. Mr. Lawman, prisoner's counsel, made much during the day's proceedings of the question whether the clothing found on the body were wet or dry. It"will be remembered that when the inquest was being held much was made of the fact that heavy rain had fallen till late in the evening. Because the clothing was dry it was inferred that the murder was committed late in the evening, and a number of theorists busied themselves with the question of what had happened in the interval. It was discovered later that the rain stopped earlier in Bos- ! combe than in Bournemouth, by 8.30 in • fact. ' ' ; Mr. Lawman tried to make the point . that as.the rain did not stop till 830 ■ and the clothing was dry the murder must have been committed about the | tune Allaway was seen at the Salisbury Hotel. He elicited the fact that the | upper part of the clothing was damp, but that had at the time been attributed . by the police to the morning dew. But • this was not all; he elicited another opinion that there being a very strong | wind in the night it would have a drying effect. The hat, which was dry, was of leather, and its dryness did not point conclusively to anything. The first day's proceedings then have ~ ended in the prisoner's counsel weakening the.evidence against him. The case was remanded, for further investigation. Throughout the day Allaway appeared perfectly calm and self-controlled. His -wife was in court all the time, dressed in quiet colours—grey skirt, white blouse, and a small dark hat. Several times during the proceedinss she seemed deeply affected, and when at the end of the day Allaway turned to leave the dock his wife looked round and a cheering smile passed between them.

The case, according to our cable news, has not yet been heard before the higher court.