BLACKMAILER GAOLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 97, 26 April 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

BLACKMAILER GAOLED.

"DEVILISH" CRIME. Frank Smith, aged 27, a farm labourer of Headcom, near Ashford, pleaded guilt} at Maidstone Assizes to demanding monej with menaces from a Maidstone man. who was referred to as Mr. X. Albert Edward Philpott, aged 63, a post ofhce pensioiiei, of The Wall, .Sittingbourne, pleaded guilt" to conspiring with Smith. , Mr. F. Powell," who prosecuted, said that Smith stopped Mr. X. m.the and said' he was out of work. m. A. took him home and gave him food, bnuth inquired if there was anyone else in the house, and then said, "If you don t give me some money I shall make out a serious case-against you. 1 am a police constable, and I shall tell the police that you lia\e assaulted me." •• , Six or seven payments were mad-e ovei a period of about live weeks, the tota sum being £510. "Mr. X." was lound suffering from coal gas poisoniii,,, and, apparentlv, very nearly lost las life. Phil pott had £60 of the . £510. Mr. Justice Rowlatt said if Smith had been :a professional blackmailer he would have sentenced him, if not to the lull punishment permitted by law—penal servitude for life-to something very near it. "Every honest man in this country, be he prince or labourer," continued Mr. Justice Rowlatt, "must know what a devilish thing it is to threaten a man with an aceusataion- of crime to extort money from him. Smith will be sentenced to seven" years' penal servitude. bmith swooned, and was carried below by the warders, and a woman at the back ot *ne Court, who also collapsed, was earned outside by police officers. Philpott was sentenced to 12 months hard labour. Mr. Justice Rowlatt, after the men had been rpmoved.' said: "This crime must be stamped outj and it will be stamped - out mercilessly in any l Court in which 1 picside."