Man Wanted By Police Taken To Hospital

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 13

Man Wanted By Police Taken To Hospital

(Rec. 11.15 p.m.) LONDON, July 17. A few hours after he had been arrested Fritz Podola, sought by police in connexion with the murder of a London detective, was taken early today from the Chelsea Police Station to hospital.

The “Daily Express” said a police surgeon who had been called to the station had decided that the man was suffering froffi exhaustion and was not fit to make a statement. An ambulance was called. The man left the station accompanied by several detectives. This ended three dramatic hours, said the “Daily Express.” Armed police, hunting the killer of Detective-Sergeant Ray Purdy, burst into a Kensington hotel bedroom at 3 a.m. yesterday. Their Alsatian dog seized a man who was lying on the bed smoking and listening to dance music on the radio. The man wps taken, feet bare <pd head covered, to the Chelsea Police Station. The hotel was a few hundred yards from where 43-year-old Detective-Sergeant Purdy was shot down in the hallway of a block of flats three days ago. The "Daily Express’" said the police dog. Flame, was slipped into room 15 at the hotel and. snarling, went like an arrow for the man on the bed. The powerful Alsatian caught him and in an uproar they rolled off the bed on to the floor. Detectives pinned the man down. He was bustled away. Known in the London underworld as “Scarface,” Podola arrived in Britain about three months ago. He was deported from Canada last year. Sergeant Purdy, the third policeman to be killed in the London area since 1952, was shot through the chest after he and a colleague Detective - Sergeant John Sandford—had held a man for questioning. They apprehended the man in connexion with telephone calls, said to be of a threatening nature, to Mrs Verne Schiffman, a model and the British-born wife of an American.

The calls began after a burglary at her flat in which two passports and about £lOOO were stolen. Police told her that the telephone would be monitored and that when the man rang again,-

she should keep him talking as long as possible. The man telephoned on Monday and set in motion the events that led to Purdy’s death. Police officers were in the ambulance which took 30-year-old Podola to St. Stephen’s Hospital and remained at his bedside. A police spokesman said this morning that no charge in connexion with the murder had been made. The “Star” said that a police surgeon, Dr J. Shannahan, was called to the Chelsea Police Station, where Podola was- detained and he suggested Podola be taken to hospital for a mental and physical check-up. On arrival at the hospital Podola was given sedatives and put to bed in an open ward with 20 other men. Pink canvas screens were placed around his bed. Two detectives sat at each side of his bed and two more were guarding the corridors. Food was specially prepared for Podola in the hospital kitchens. Later he was to be examined by a surgeon and specialists.