SPY ACCUSATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 220, 13 June 1936, Page 24

SPY ACCUSATION

Unusual Slander Case

An Austrian baron who afterward became a French subject alleged that he had been accused of being a German spy in a slander action heard in the King's Bench Division before Mr. Justice Talbot recently. The defendant io the action was Captain D. It. G. Peal, of St. Peter’s. Bude, Cornwall. Counsel stated that as the plaintiff was a French subject he was not entitled to use the word “baron.” He was referred to in the ease as Mr. Edmond de Landauer. Mr. de Landauer, said counsel, was a mining inspector for some years in the employ of an oil corporation, and he plleged that on April 19 last .Captain Peel, in a boarding house at Fitzjohn Avenue, London, said of him to the proprietress: “lie is a German spy. He left your house because he was afraid of me. He has been using you as a dupe. He is being paid by the German Government .to be here for the purpose of obtaining information. He has been leading me into conversation regarding the aerial defences of the country.” Mr. Valentine Holmes, in opening the ease, said Mr. de Landauer’s profession could be described as an oil mining inspector. Early in 1902 he and his family introduced acetylene light into Spain. He was knighted by King Alfonso in 1902. During the war he acted as emissary of the French Government in the "United States on a military mission, for which he received the personal thanks of the then French Minister for War. He went in 1929 to Germany, and from then until 1934 he was in the district of Hanover as inspector and servant of an oil corporation. Since 1934 he had been in London, acting when required in an advisory capacity with that corporation. Captain Peal knew the history of, Mr. do Landauer, who when he came to this country went in September of that year to live at a boardinghouse in Hampstead kept by a Mrs. Waring. In April of the following year he went to stay in a Hat not far away from the boardinghouse, but later came back to it.

Captain Peal, continued counsel, met Mr. de Landauer for the first time just about a fortnight before the latter left the boardinghouse. “Ou May 3 Mr. de Landauer decided to go back to the boardinghouse, but when he got there he found an atmosphere hostile to him, and he made inquiries, He had left the boardinghouse in April about seven o’clock in the morning before- the guests came to breakfast.

“Apparently that seemed to have excited the suspicion of Captain Peal, who. during the day, snoke to Mrs.' Waring about it.” . Counsel ’then read the slander complained of. The defence was a denial that the words were spoken. Mr. Valentine Holmes said there-was a still graver matter. On April 20 Captain Peal walked into Mrs. Waring’s house and called her down to see a man whom he described as a Scotland Yard detective, who wished to interrogate her about Mr. de Lan-

The man did interrogate Mrs. Waring. who, however, had not believed what was said about Mr. de Landauer, and was indignant. Mr. de Landauer, giving evidence, said he did not owe any money for his board when he left. There had

been a litlle accident in the bathroom which had caused Mrs. Waring some expense and which he had said he would pay. The claim for that was about £3 and not £7.

Mrs. Helen Waring, of Fitzjohn Avenue. Hampstead, said that Mr. de Landauer was a guest at the house when she took it over.

Questioned about the alleged slander. she said that she was having tea with a woman friend in her room when Captain Peal knocked at the door. He was invited in, and said: “I know why the baron left this morning. He was afraid of me.”

Mrs. ’Waring said: “What do you mean?” and he replied. "I have reason to believe he is a German spy. He has been leading me into conversation in regard to aerial defences of England, and you are being used as a dupe.” Next day a man called, and said he was from Scotland Yard. Cross-examined by Mr. Stevenson, Mrs. Waring denied that-she told Captain Peal that the baron "was a pest and made love to her.’ Mrs. Waring said: “1 have never given Captain Peal any information about the baron,” and added that she was extremely annoyed at Captain Peal’s high-handed manner in bringing the police to the house without her permission. Captain Darel Robert George Peal, in the witness-box, said that he was still an active officer. He was on extremely friendly terms with Mr. de Landauer at Mrs. Waring’s house, and just before Mr. de Landauer left he told him he was going to Paris to meet his young daughter. At 6.35 in the morning of April 19, Captain Peal continued, he was looking out of his bedroom window when he saw Mr. de Landauer in the street, After breakfast he saw Mrs. Waring, who looked worried, and, replying to his question, she said: “Don’t you know the baron's gone?”

He replied that he did, and she then told him that the -baron owed her £7 and that before he (Captain Peal) came to the boardinghouse, there were foreign visitors, mostly Germans, who held conferences in the room which the baron then occupied.

Captain Peal said that in Mrs. Waring’s room in the afternoon of the same day she asked him, “Do you consider Baron de Landauer a German spy?” He replied: “I don’t think so, but his behaviour is most suspicious,” and told her that if she was speaking the truth the obvious thing to do was to notify the police. He (Captain Peal) told Mrs. Waring that if her facts were true it was her duty as a Britisher to put the matter in the hands of the police. He said he would give her statement to the police, and she said she would give her evidence if an officer came to the house.

He accordingly rang up Scotland Yard but had never suggested to anybody that the baron was a German spy. Cross-examined, Captain Peal said that as a British officer he deemed it his duty to ring up Scotland Yard because, though Mrs.'Waring persisted in repeating her statement, she would not inform the police. “It never entered my head,” he added, “that the baron was a spy, and I never said so.” Mr. Justice Talbot then summed up. After an absence of half-an-hour, the jury, by a majority of eight to four, returned a verdict for the defendant. Judgment was entered accordingly with costs.