FREER CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 285, 1 December 1936, Page 8

FREER CASE.

MINISTER'S PART.

ALLEGED LETTERS.

MR. PATERSON'S INFORMANT.

NEWSPAPER " REVELATIONS."

The full story of the correspondence which is alleged to have passed between the Australian Minister of the Interior, Mr. T. Paterson, and a man who was stated to have given information regarding Mrs. M. M. Freer, was published in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" last Thursday. Reference to this correspondence was made in a cable sent to New Zealand last week. The "Telegraph" states that in his efforts to obtain further evidence to support bis banishment from Australia of Mrs. Freer, Mr. Paterson went to a great deal of trouble to collect information from an actor living in Sydney. Although the man did not request it, Mr. Paterson wrote giving the promise that if any use was made of his information his name would never be revealed.

The "Daily Telegraph" gave the name of Sir. Paterson's informant as Walter Townsend Hunt, and set out in black type an alleged criminal record beginning in 1931 with three months' gaol for alleged false pretences in India. Two other Sydney convictions, one with twelve months' gaol for alleged false pretences in Sydney in April, 1935 (falsely promising women parts in a film "The Love Child"), and another conviction for perjury, carrying a sentence of nine months in gaol, are also set out in black iype. The paper then goes on to relate the full story of the "shameful correspondence" which, it is alleged, passed Between Mr. Paterson and the informant Hunt.

"One of the high lights,'" says the "Telegraph," "is that even Mr. Hunt does not now'pretend that the information", for which Mr. Paterson thanked him referred to the Mrs. Freer who was banned —in fact, when he was shown a photograph of the Mrs. M. M. Freer now in New Zealand, he said definitely last night this was not the woman about whom he had written to-Mr. Paterson." The report proceeds:- —i "When first I heard of the banning," said Mr. Walter Hunt, who lives at * Neutral Bay, last night, "I understood that Mrs. Freer's first name was Vera, and remembered that while I was in Bangalore I had met a Mrs. Vera Freer. "She lived in Infantry Road, Bangalore, and often came to the hotel where I was staying. That was about four years ago. ."She' was about twenty-three years old, with black hair. I can't say what colour her eyes" were, but they were not brown, and they were not bine. "Her features were Eurasian, and she called herself an Anglo-Indian, which nowadays in India means a Eurasian. She had a little boy who was dark. She said she had been divorced. "Not Certain." "I could not say for certain that she ■was a Eurasian, but I thought so, and there was a good deal of hearsay on tie subject. There was a good deal of gossip about her generally, as there would be about any woman living in cantonments who had had a child and was divorced from her husband., The hearsay might or might not be true. Thinking that "this Mrs. Freer w'hom Mr. Paterson had banned »vas the Mrs. Vera Freer I knew, I wired him, 'Endorse your action against Mrs. Freer. Knew her in India.' I then received a letter from Mr. Paterson thanking me for my communication ;and suggesting that I should help him to corroborate information about Mrs. Freer in his possession, f wrote to Mr. Paterson then telling him what I have told you, but I emphasised that the Mrs. Freer I knew might not be the Mrs. Freer he had banned, and pointed out that what I knew was largely hearsay." "Not the Same Woman." Mr. Hunt also stated that his letter was extremely tentative. He was not at all prepared to swear that the Mrs. Freer who had come to Australia was the Mrs. Freer he had known. He said he told Mr. Paterson that he had no objection to his publishing this letter or reading it in Parliament. Mr. Hunt wondered _why he did not do so. He had also suggested that the Minister could easily discover whether or not Mrs. Freer was a Eurasian by getting her 1 birth certificate; Nothing had apparently been done about that either: The representatives of the "Daily Telegraph" then showed Mr. Hunt a photograph of Mrs. Freer, larger and clearer than those previously published. "Is that the Mrs. Freer you knew in Bangalore?" ?\r" ftudied the picture. is not the same woman. I T>ictiiro<f I T?.i. , v n point. In previous blanpp v. bought 'there was a resemUSSSSrrir «*•»» i» «* tte The folinn'• * n ®~ 18 an ® n glish face." w ? Umby "Minister of the Interior, Canberra, F C T Dear Sir,- N °venib*r 13,'1930. I desire to thank you for vcmr +„i IW "' AM™*? U l h> re £ara to Mrs" Freer. Although there .is adequate information in the possession o? my Department to justify the action taken ' rv fo™ 6 m tbl \ case ' lam anxious to I as much corroboration, as pos-'

sible, particularly from people in Australia who know Mrs. Freer. In your telegram you refer to .'Vera Freer.' I presume that she is identical with Mrs. Mabel Magdalene Freer, which is the name of the person restricted from landin™. I should lie greatly obliged if you would kindly let me have any information which you possess regarding this woman. If 'the information is used, your name, of course, would not be mentioned. An early reply would be greatly appreciated. Again thanking you for your telegram. Yours faithfully, T. Patterson." Mrs. Freer's Replies. Interviewed bv the '"Daily Telegiapli in Auckland by radio telephone, Mrs Freer emphatically denied that slie had ever been in Bangalore. She vehemently denied that she was Euiasian. " Both her parents were English, ami she was born in England, she c^aid. Questioned en the radio telephone, Mrs. Freer said she had never met the man who alleged lie had met hei in Bangalore. She did not care whether he was an actor or teacher of elocution, she had never met such a person. She was definitely not Mrs. Vera Freer, and obviously the mail had met some other Mrs. Freer. The man hud said that a Mrs. Vera Freer had given him a cigarette case.

"I have never possessed a cigarette case, nor have I ever given one to any man." declared Mrs. Freer. "The ciga rette case may have been inscribed 'Maie,' but I have never been known by that name, and I never gave it to him."

She had never met a man named Walter Hunt in Bangalore or in any other place, declared Mrs. Freer. The Mrs. Freer mentioned must have been some other woman. Then she added: "So that is the sort of story that_ Mr. Paterson listens to, is it? Well, it is no more true of me than the statement that I am an adventuress."

When asked what she now intended to do, Mrs. Freer said she did not know yet. She wanted to avoid the risk of being turned away again, but now that a special tribunal to hold a public inquiry into the case had been refused lier, she would have to make some final stand. SVe was in touch with a legal adviser in Australia.