AMAZING STORY

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

AMAZING STORY

A Solicitor’s Sacrifice

Succeeding to his dead father’s practice, a young solicitor found to his horror that the affairs of the firm were in terrible disorder. Four thousand pounds were owing to clients; there was a bank overdraft, of £3373. Unable to pay the debts, the son was faced with two grim alternatives—ho could either expose his father and ruin his name, or lie could become parry to his father's wrongdoing. H n decided to stand by his father.

A- a sequel, the son. Frank Ceorge Darling, aged 39. of Selly Oak, Birmingham, stood in the dock at Birmingham Assize; charged with fraudulently converting £2866 of his clients' money. .

Mr. -Norman BirkelL K.C.. maih* jn rliMjiient plea’for Darling. "lie was in a terrible position,'' Mr. Birkett declared. “Whim he learned of the true state of the practice it was almost, too heartrending to contemplate lie <iug one bole to till another. He ba” endured years of torture, but he hopes that by industry there will lie redempI ion."

Mr. Justice Atkinson pointed out that Darling had to choose a course which would have mined hR father, or one of becoming party Io .■mother man's w rongdolng.

Darling was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. But Darling's storv was only half told iu court. Behind

it lies another and equally amazing story.

The firm was started by Darling’s father, an orphan educated at a charity school. From there he was apprenticed to a firm of solicitors. 11 is industry ami application so impressed the head of the firm that he undertook to pay for young Darling’s studies, tin til. with this help ami encouragement, the boy finally became a qualified solicitor. lie I lien brain-lied out to build up a practice of bis own, and married a girl who kept, a small drapery simp in Selly Oak, which was then a little village on the outskirts of Birmingham. The young couple lived on tbo profits of this shop until the solicitor's business became established. “lie was devoted to Ids wife." said a man who had been a close friend of the family, "and when lie discovered that his wife was suffering from an incurable complaint the business he bad built up liegan to slip from his grasp.

“Then came another blow. Fr.’intv. their only son. joined the army during the war years, greatly against their wishes. This,.! believe, was indirectly the cause of the family’s misfortune. fop in their desire to be near their soldier son during his periods of leave, the couple, who had lived so quietly in Selly Oak, took a flat in London. This was their only extravagance that, I ever knew.”