EX-RECTOR FOR TRIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

EX-RECTOR FOR TRIAL.

ALLEGED STARVATION. Harold Francis Davidson, the former rector of Stiffkey, Norfolk, was, at Blackpool, committed for trial on a charge alleging that he unlawfully starved himself with the intention of committing suicide. He pleaded not guilty and reserved his defence. Bail was allowed. Davidson, whose age was given as 60, was alleged by the prosecution to have gone to premises on Blackpool front and there put himself in a cabinet and announced that it was his intention to starve to death, unless the archbishop or bishop proceeded to put him back into the" position he formerly held. Posters Exhibited. Reference was made to posters that were exhibited. The prosecution submitted that it was clearly a case of a man who had the view that he had . been wronged and who proposed to starve himself to death. Mr. Kenneth Burke, defending, objected that the posters were not put up by Davidson or written by him, but were put up outside the exhibition by Mr. Luke Gannon, the proprietor.

Mr. E. Rowson, prosecuting, replied that at any rate Davidson appeared to have had something to do with the drafting of them. Mr. Burke submitted that there was no proof whatever that in the ten days' period referred to Mr. Davidson was ever in danger of his life. When the question of conditions attaching to bail was under discussion Davidson said: "If the magistrates compel me not to work I shall starve. They will compel me to starve. I must work, because I have not a penny piece in the world. For four days I have been kept by friends."