MURDER BUT NO BODY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 75, 21 December 1929, Page 33

MURDER BUT NO BODY

A remarkable'ease, said to be without parallel in the records of English . law, was heard at Bow Street Police ' Court recently, when a man. who had confessed to murder was discharged. The man, Albert Lord, aged 29, a chaff-cutter, df Carlingford Road, Tottenham, N., surrendered to the police at Tottenham riot long ago, declaring that he had thrown a woman into the Thames from Waterloo Bridge. He appeared on remand before Sir Chartres Biron, at Bow Street, charged with the. murder of a woman. Mr. E. Clayton, prosecuting, stated that Lord in his statement declared that the woman whom he threw over Waterloo Bridge was named Rose. No Yody had beeu found, no person named Rose had been reported missing, and ne one saw Lord with a woman on the night in question. The law used to be that a body must be found before a charge of murder could arise. Sir Chartres Biron: Has that ever been a rule of law? It was a rule of practice rather than a rule of law. Mr. Clayton said that there had been convictions for murder in cases wh&re no body had been found. Most of these were for burning or drowning, but there had always been some evidence to connect the assailant with the victim. • . » . . In one ease the captain of a ship was pushed overboard and his body was not found, possibily owing to the prevailing currents or to the presence of sharks in the immediate vicinity. But there was evidence that the captain was seen struggling with the assailant and that he was pushed over the side of the ship.

CASE WITHOUT PARALLEL

There was no evidence in the present case to connect Lord with a woman, except his own statement.

Sir Chartres: There is the direct evidence of his statement. I cannot remember any cases, and I cannot find any reported, in which the evidence of the murder has been a prisoner’s own statement.

(Mr. Clayton said that to throw a woman over the parapet would be no mean feat of strength. Lord would have had to throw her seven feet to clear the bridge and the parapet. Lord, in his statement, said there were several peAons on the bridge, but no one heard a splash, and no hat even had been found.

Sir Chartres Biron, dismissing the charge, said that in such cases it was a clear rule of law that there must be some direct evidence connecting the accused with the murder. Was there such evidence in this case? There was Lord’s statement, and the only question was whether it was of such a nature as to justify him in committting him for trial.

At first he was inclined to think that there was, but now that the facts had been more fully explained it seemed that there were some inherent improbabilities in the statement. If evidence was discovered later, Lord could be arrested again. After his release, Lord -stated to a newspaper reporter: . “It is all over now and I want to forget about it. I was advised to go to the police by friends. That is all I have to say.”