No One Expected SENTENCE OF DEATH But It Came!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 99, 29 April 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

No One Expected SENTENCE OF DEATH But It Came!

PASSING through the gates of Pentonville prison in tears

I thought she -would refuse to do so and thus give me an excuse for replacing her in the bar. c "But it was of 110 use, for the couple married shortly afterwards. It soon became obvious that they were not happy. Leslie was serious—a one-woman j man. Evelyn was attractive and liked a gay life. "Then came that affair in Manchester and I prayed they would never pet to- j gether again. Why did they become re- s conciled and go to Shepherd's Bush? If j they had only taken separate ways tlien, . this terrible tragedy would never have x , happened. I realise that he did a terrible thing, i but I cannot see into his heart, and can i understand only dimly the fearful con- 1 flict that must have gone on in his ] brain during the few seconds before he < killed her. "Leslie is confident he will not be i hanged, especially after the jury's ] strong recommendation to mercy, and I < L believe that the Home Secretary, in his j mercy, will decide that justice can be < met without my son having to pay the i extreme penalty." Mrs. Clements, who had travelled from Manchester for her son's trial, was un- ; able to bear the strain of remaining in Court to hear the jury's verdict. Sitting alone in a quiet corner of the Court building, she broke down when a pressman told her of the death sentence. "With God's help I can bear it, but I thank God his father is not alive today," she sobbed. "It would have broken his heart." A few paces from the sobbing mother 5 stood fair-liaired Felix Cullan, now a r Blackpool dancer, who had gone to the ♦ —

after having visited her 2 9-year-old son, Leslie Charles Clements, lying there under sentence of death for murdering his 2 5-year-old wife Evelyn, elderly Mrs. Clements, of Old Trafford, Manchester, declared to a reporter: "I have just seen my youngest boy in the condemned cell. My heart is broken. "Leslie must "be allowed to live —he does not deserve to die. He is a good boy, and would have made a good citizen. He firmly believes he will not be hanged, and I am going to fight for a reprieve, and after that for his freedom." The tragedy that took Clements to the condemned cell occurred or. October 25, in the basement flat which he and his wife occupied in Shepherd's Bush, West London. He told an Old Bailey jury that when he heard his wife murmur the words, "Have you put the kettle on, Felix?" one morning while she was half asleep, he thought she had committed misconduct. She had spoken to him about a man called Felix, a demonstrator of dancing dolls, whom she had met in the Isle of Man. Clements declared that he lost control of himself, tried to strangle his I wife, hit her on the head with a bottle, ' and "put a penknife between her shoulder-blades." The jury found him guilty after deliberating for an hour and 20 minutes. They strongly recommended him to J mercy, and found he had acted under . great provocation, but not sufficient to ' reduce the charge to manslaughter. » No reference was made at the trial i to another charge preferred against i Clements at Manchester previously, , alleging that he attempted to murder his wife in the bedroom of a Manchester hotel. But when that case was mentioned to ATr- Pl-ADm l „

ilr. Justice Croom-Johnson at Manchester Assizes after the Old Bailey prosecution, the judge directed that it should be respited to the next Assizes. Counsel remarked that by that time the position would have been clarified. After visiting Pentonville Prison with her sister from Nottingham, Mrs. Clements told the Press something of her son's romance and tragedy. "When I saw him Leslie seemed to be reconciled to his' position, and determined to fee brave," she declared, with emotion. "But I knew how he was really suffering. He i 3 my baby boy—the youngest of my family—and he could hide nothing from me. "He worshipped Evelyn, and why he acted as he did I cannot understand. That secret is locked away in his heart. "But from the beginning of their romance I had a feeling that tragedy was impending. "Evelyn came to us as a barmaid when we kept a hotel in Lancashire. She was a superior type of girl, good-looking and vivacious. She had had a first-class education, was something of a linguist and a poet, and a keen reader of serious books. "Leslie soon began to pay a good deal of attention to Evelyn, sometimes even writing poetry to her, and I could see he had fallen head-over-heels in love. "I went to my husband—he was alive at the time—told him of Leslie's feelings towards the girl and suggested that we should ask Evelyn to 'live in.' « —

Old Bailey prepared to tell of his aes®ciation with the dead woman. "If only all this had never happened— if only what has been done could b6 undone," he said. "I came here prepared to tell the truth —to tell the world that Evelyn and I had been lovers —but I was not called to the witness «tand. There is little I can say now. "I did not know the real position, f<* I believed Mrs. Clements had been separated from her husband. If she had posed as a single girl I might have been auspicious, but she always used her married name. Later we parted. "When this case arose people began to talk, and coupled my name, Felix, with that of Mrs. Clements, and realised that I the 'other man.' Since then I have been hounded and I have lost a good job. "My mother said I should tell the police about our association, but I could not see what good that would do. However, when she did tell the police I agreed with her action, and I decided to go to the Old Bailey to do what I could. "I had hoped that at the worst the verdict would be one of manslaughter, and I was stunned when Clements wu sentenced to death. I feel sorry for him and will do all I can to help him." Also in the court building during the final act of the flat drama was pretty Miss. Jean Duff, the dead woman's sister. The sisters had been together the day before the trajiedy. '"Evelyn and Leslie seemed to be quite happy and reconciled." she said. "The tragedy came as a great shock to me." The Clements' two-year-old son is in the care of his maternal grandmother, Mrs. E. Duff, of Manchester. »