EX-LOVER.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10886, 12 August 1932, Page 3

EX-LOVER.

DENIES HE STOLE WOMAN’S MONEY. Melbourne, Aug, 1. Supporting his £IO,OOO damage claim against Mrs Hyams, her son, and two other men for alleged assault and false imprisonment, Murray Edward Garth, of Hamilton (N.S.W.) denied to-day in the Civic Court that he had “got away” with £II,OOO to £12,000 belonging to the woman. The defendants are Mrs Ida Hyams, her son Isadore ' (now in England), Frank Roberts and Albert Eastwood, who are alleged to have tied up and beaten Garth, a former lover of Mrs Hyams. Garth denied that he liad ever been associated with a person named Phil Jeffs or “Phil the Jew,” or that he knew a man named Toby Tobias, or that he had been a visitor at a house at Brisbane, kept by a woman nameji “Big Margot.” He said he did not know the house neither did he know a girl named Jean Allen. He was not at a house at South Yarra when it was raided by the police. He denied that he had forged a cheque for £8 50. Up to the time when Mrs Hyams got her divorce, there was no serious hostility, said Grath. “We were generally affectionate She was a very clever woman, and very attractive.” Mabel Louisa Appleyard, of Marrickville, who did housework for “Mr and Mrs Garth” in 1930, said she had never seen any violence displayed by Garth to Mrs Hyams and her son. She had never seen Garth take liquor, but he was,a big lemonadedrinker. There were frequent tiffs over money, mostly when Isadore was at home. She had never heard Mrs Hyams ask Garth to leave, or Garth call Mrs Hyams an old cow. She had heard Mrs Hyams call Garth a swine. The rows occurred about once a week, and afterwards Garth and Mrs Hyams were “very loving.” Constable Piggins said that when he saw Garth early on June 22 his head was double the size it was today, and both eyes Were closed. Before going to hospital he insisted on going to his office, where he lay on the floor, lifted up one injured eyelid, manipulated the lock of the safe and inspected the contents of an inner safe. At the hospital witness saw on Garth’s body the marks of a rope, which had sunk a quarter of an inch into the flesh. When Mrs Hyams, Roberts and Eastwood were told that Garth had accused them of robbing him of £620, Mrs Hyams said she had instructed the men to bind Garth and take the money from him, because he had threatened to turn his dogs on them and to shoot them. Mrs Hyams told him she was so frightened of Garth that she had bought a revolver for protection, and Roberts admitted that Garth was handcuffed and kept in a room. Alan Phillips, whom Garth had displaced as Mrs Hyams’s chauffeur, said Roberts told him, “We gave Garth a father of a hiding,’ and added that he and Eastwood received £SO each for the job. Albert Victor Eastwood gave evidence that he answered an advertisement for an ex-boxer and told Mrs Hyams and Isadore that he had been employed by Lord Richard Neville, who was private secretary to the Earl of Hopetoun. Mrs Hyams showed him a safe, where she said Garth was going to put her. No arrangements were made as to what he and Roberts should do to Garth.