NIGHT LIFE IN LONDON.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20572, 14 June 1932, Page 9

NIGHT LIFE IN LONDON.

ACTRESS CHARGED WITH MURDER. fcxiTZD PBX33 ASSOCIATION—BT »I,*CT*IC TBLEGHAPH—COPYRIGHT.) LONDON, June 12. Crowds of fashionably-dressed women formed a queue outside the Westminster Police Court, when Mrs Elvira Dolores Barney was charged with the murder of Michael Stephen. The prosecuting counsel related how neighbours early in the morning heard Mrs Barney scream: "Get out of my house! I hate you! I will shoot you!" Then they heard shots, and cries of anguish, Mrs Barney exclaiming: "I love you so, Chicken. Come back and I'll do anything you ask me." A doctor found Mrs Barney kneeling besido the body and kissing it, saying: "I love you." She was in evident distress.

Mrs Barney's statement to the police was that she quarrelled with Stephen about a woman.. He attempted to take the revolver from her, and the weapon went off during the struggle. Tho prosecutor said that Sir Bernard Spilsbury (pathologist to the Home Office) would give evidence that it was not impossible, but extremely improbable, for the wound to have been caused accidentally, or for Stephen to have shot himself. A gun expert would give evidence in support of the theory that it was impossible for Stephen to pull the trigger and inflict a wound of this character and position. The Crown was also tendering a second charge of shooting at Stephen, with intent to do grievous bodily harm, on May 19th. Accused was remanded till Juno 18th.

[Mrs Elvira Dolores Barney, actress, daughter of Sir John Mullens, a retired stockbroker, was arrested on June sth, and remanded for a week on a charge of murdering Michael Stephen, son of a bank manager. Stephen was found dead, shot in the chest, in Mrs Barney's luxurious flat at Kensington. Deceased's brother stated that the former's debts had been paid frequently by his father. Stephen had denied living with Mrs Barney, whose husband is in the United States. The tragedy was said to be another result of tho notorious night life in drinking and dance dens frequented by well-to-do people on the fringe of society.]