Blackmailer's Guerdon"

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

Blackmailer's Guerdon"

HAUNTING certain places in the West End of London is a gang which preys on a particular type of young men who frequent these spots. This was the statement of a detective at the Old Bailey when John Power, 33, barman, and John Thomas Flowers, 2!), electrical engineer, pleaded guilty to demanding £9 with menaces from an unnamed man. Power, according to Mr. L. A. Byrne, prosecuting, got in touch with the prosecutor and told him he and his wife and three children had no money and nowhere to sleep. The prosecutor agreed to take a room for them in Euston Road, and went with Power to fix it up. Nothing wrong happened there, and they left in the prosecutor's car. Flowers stopped tliem, and said to Power: "You have had three months for soliciting, and it will mean three years for you." He added that it would mean a year for the prosecutor. Posing as a policeman, Flowers examined the prosecutor's driving license. Then he told him: "I can't see why a chap like you should do this." He had to report to Marlborough Street, he said, but he wanted to give the prosecutor "a break." He went on to inquire how much money he had. The prosecutor, who was in fear, replied that he had only a pound, but he promised to give Flowers ail open cheque for £0 later on. Next day he gave Flowers the cheque, which was cashed. "By the looks of things everything is hushed up. But I am not letting you get away with it. The way things have turned out you will have to give me £5, or I will tell the superintendent. "It won't be 'Mr. X' this time. Your name will have to appear for bribing a police officer." In another case in which Flowers alone was concerned a second prosecutor took him to his room at Victoria. Flowers, pretending to be a police officer, told him: "I have caught you. Put your hat on."

The prosecutor pleaded with him an | Flowers Baid, "How orach can * n manage?" The prosecutor promised t« borrow £4 and communicated with tin police. When Flowers came for the money ke was arrested. He then remarked: "J am not really a police officer. I only pulling his leg." Detective-Sergeant Glander told the Court that Power was a married m». with three children. He had been in > considerable wav of business in and had lost £4000. Since coming to this country in Jfjr he had been employed as a barman and a caretaker. He bore an excellent character. While unemployed he met at a cafe in Charing Cross Road Flower* and other men who made a living }> T class of offence. He had been trothfnl to the police and had given them m. sid-rable assistance. Wm * Flowers was also a man of hitherto good character. He had been in ourilies* as an electrical engineer in Leicester, where he Lad a wife and two children. He came to London in July and in August there was a complaint about him. While in Leicester he had associated with a detective-sergeant who had resigned. There was little doubt that it was this association which gave fcj» the idea of posing as a police officer The Recorder, Mr. Gen Id Dodgsogi*» you suggest that bot.i these mea Mire recently adopted this method of getting a livelihood? Sergeant Glander: Flowers, July, has been persistently engaged in it. Power came into it about a mm.fi. before his arrest. Power, from the dock, pleaded Jfet he had been driven to the offenca fer poverty. ' "My children had just come onto' hospital, and they had the bed* white niv wife and I slept on the floor," he declared. "I have been a man of'ieiependent means, and I should have been well off to-day if I had not »one intn business." ° The Recorder told Flowei* he was satisfied he was the instigator of the crime, and sentenced him to 21 months' imprisonment. He passed sentence of 18 mouths' imprisonment on Power.