LENIENCY SHOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 9

LENIENCY SHOWN.

KING INTERCEDES.

Sender of Menacing Letters

Sentenced.

JUDGE AND BASELESS BELIEF,

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, January 19. Clarence Guy Gordon Hacldon, who was charged with sending menacing letters to King George, pleaded guilty, under extreme provocation, and was bound over for three years in two sureties of £100 to refrain from making and affirming similar statements. The accused alleged that ho was a son of the late Duke of Clarence, the King's brother. G9

The judge said that one of the reasons for taking this course was that the person against wliom intolerable threats had been made had expressed a desire, through the Attorney-General to be in no way vindictive.

The Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Inskip, said that the subject of the charges was an obsession on the part of Haddon that he was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Clarence. Haddon claimed that he had been born in London on September 28, 1890. The Dnko of Clarence went to India on a tour in November, 1889, which ended in 1890.

Documents showed that Haddon's mother bore three children, including a boy in 180 D not to her then husband but to a Lieutenant Rogers. Haddon's mother was addicted to drink because she had in her mind that she was secretly married to the Duke of Clarence. She brought up the boy in that belief, and throughout his life Haddon had found himself pursued by notoriety and mockery. "Unless you wish to end in the madhouse the sooner you depart from this baseless belief the better. It seems it lias rested on you as a curse," said the judge.