Posed As A Doctor

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

Posed As A Doctor

IF you had seen 5 3-year-old Henry Bernard Langdon standing before the Old Bailey judge, you might easily have understood why so many West End theatrical folk regarded him as a doctor. Wearing a winged collar and black bow tie, he showed that he possessed the "bedside manner" to a . high degree, and no medical man could have bowed more elegantly than he did to the judge. But "Dr. Langdon" left the Court for the cells, revealed as a one-time £2000-a-year dentist, who had obtained money by false pretences by posing as a qualified registered medical practitioner, and had assaulted a married woman whom he "examined." It had been declared that he had posed as a doctor in the West End, generally among the theatrical profession, for two or three years, but his counsel submitted that if he practised medicine, as alleged, he did it more out of vanity than for personal gain. Langdon, who lived in Walthamstow, declared that people came to him for dental treatment, and if he had given them "any little tonic," he had done so free of charge. Passing sentence of six months' imprisonment in the second division, the Common Serjeant. Mr. Cecil Wliiteley, K.C., observed that he agreed entireiv with the jury's verdict that Langdon posed as a doctor. "Happily for you, nothing has apparently happened with regard to any treatment you may have given, but one shudders to think what might have happened. The public must be protected from this sort of thing," added Mr. Wliiteley. This was the story told by Mr. L. A. Byrne concerning the assault charge against Langdon. Last January, Langdon was introduced as Dr. Langdon to Mr. and Mrs, J. W. S. Richmond, who lived in a house-boat on the river at Little Hampton. In conversation he remarked, "I have not worked for years as a police doctor for nothing," and he was also alleged to have stated that he was associated with Sir Bernard Spilsbury, which was untrue. As a result, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond were satisfied he was a medical practitioner and Mr. Richmond told him his wife had some internal trouble. Langdon, who said he would examine Mrs. Richmond, asked her some questions and told her to undress. She did so, and, in the presence of Mr. Richmond. Langdon examined her. He was paid for the treatment he prescribed.

Langdon's counsel, Mr. Ashe Lincoln, declared that so far as other people were concerned, Langdon denied they had thought he was a doctor. It wonli be idle to deny he had treated peop'.e medically, but "this was the only case in which it was alleged he had been guilty of deliberate deceit. Langdon had made many friends among theatrical people in the West End. and most of them knew he was a dentist and not entitled to be styled "Doctor." It was his readiness at all times to give advice on the treatment of ailments which first earned him the title, and eventually his friends invariably addressed him as "Dr. Langdon." He was said in Court to have a "certain amount of vanity." To hear people speak of him as "Dr. Langdon" perhaps recalled memories of the time when, while running a second-hand clothes shop, he dreamed he would one day become a doctor. His ambition is still unfulfilled. Born of Jewish parents, he chanscd his name to "Henry Langdon" by dc?d poll in 1917. He married in 1907. ami it was after this that he and his wife kept the second-hand shop. Subsequently they entered the dentistry bjisiness. and for a time the practice earned as much as £2000 a rear. Langdon bought his wife out of the business in 1923, and, according to the police, she left him because of his alleged cruelty and infidelity. His pose as a doctor came many years after. While he L« paying the penary in Wormwood Scrubs, he ha.s the knowledge that many people still believe in • him. One of them is Mr. Robin Richmond. brother of Mr. J. W. S. Richmond, wlwc wife, "Dr. Langdon" examined. He was • not called as a witness but was referred • to in Court as "this phantom witness > hovering somewhere in the outer corri- • dors." I "I feel sorry for Langdon, and even if . it had entailed a break with my brother. I would have stood by him in tin* . trouble," Mr. Robin Richmond to'd the » Press. "I will be waiting at the prison cafes to greet him when he is released. "He had eurioiK ideas of payment t* T • help rendered. Once or twice when has prescribed for me he has said: *<"*'■ j just give me a cigar or buy me a Inn- 1 ' 5 —that'll be enough.' ' "Now lam going to do nil Tc" • - see if his sentence can be ~h^>^tcTT*• , "It was revealed in Court that L r " don first came 1o the notice of the *,»•" • in March. 1935. when lie attempted ' engineer a "marriajre of conveniens between an Italian radio performr-. 3 and a deserter from the Army. Three months later he siircessfiil''" ' arranged her marriasc to another ma'i at Calais. The police did not su<r"c -* that the woman was an unde^i™' 1f alien. It was stated that SHhscniirntly T."- ■ - don obtained a judgment fnr over £'" ' against the woman's family.