AMAZING BLACKMAIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 122, 26 May 1927, Page 7

AMAZING BLACKMAIL.

Leader of Gang Gets Life Sentence. CHIEF JUSTICE'S COMMENT. LONDON, May 20. Describing the offence as the worst of its kind within his 2o years' experience, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, heavily sentenced seven men who had been found guilty of blackmailing a retired Army captain to the extent of £10.000 over a period of three years. George Taylor, the ringleader of the gang, was sentenced to penal servitude for life. Two other men were sentenced to 15 years and 12 years' imprisonment, and two others to 10 years' and one to eight years' imprisonment. Commenting on the case Lord Hewart said it was most difficult to understand why victims refrain from laying the facts plainly before the police, and relying on the discretion of the Press not to divulge their names. If they did so it would help to stamp out the worst of the pests of contemporary civilisation. One of tne raott amazing cases in the history of blackmailing was revealed at the Bow Street Court last April, when four men were charged with obtaining £10,830 from a retired Army captain whose name was not disclosed. After the theatre, the captain was inveigled in a bedroom in London. - where two men immediately secured £50 by a threat of calling in the police. Subsequently others of the gang secured £95 for a passage tc Algeria, £120 on the plea that his wife was ill, then £300, for his wife's funeral expenses. The demands continued throujho l . 1925, including £100 passage money for two men to Australia. Finally a so-called Detective Lynch appeared, and phil.mthropically promised to deal with tiie blackmailers, but quickly demanded £1100, then £200. until the cheques aggregated oyer £10,000. .