'PHONE NUISANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 12

'PHONE NUISANCE

SURREY MAN FINED

For sending a telephone message of jan objectionable character, Neil Roy Leslie Urquhart, of independent means, was fined £10 at Oxted, Surrey, rei cently, says the "Daily Telegraph." He i was also fined £5 for persistently making calls without reason and to cause annoyance. \ He denied the first offence and pleaded guilty to the second. Mr. Derek Whiteley, for the Post-master-General, said that on Sunday, September 20, Urquhart kept on making local calls from a Nuffield hotel for more than three hours, and dialled "O" at repeated intervals of about two or three minutes. When Miss Sewell, operator at the Redhill Exchange, responded to the first of these, Urquhart said: "Hello, darling, I want to speak to you." She asked what inquiries he wished to make, and he replied, "I love you. Will you meet me this evening and have a drink?" Miss Sewell told him to replace his receiver, but he continued to dial "O" and make suggestions of an objectionable character. He then asked to be put through to Scotland Yard, and told the police operator there that he had been murdered and that it was very painful. Afterwards he repeated his objectionable remarks to Miss Sewell, and eventually she informed the police at Redhi!l - - J •,, Urquhart rang up again, and said. "I am going to' take an army and conquer Abyssinia." He then started talking nonsense about Royalty. Mr. Whiteley added that this sort of caddish behaviour must be stopped. Mrs. Buckle, wife of the hotel proprietor, said that when she asked Urquhart to refrain from making these calls he said that he was ringing up the Emperor of Abyssinia. Urquhart (to the Magistrates): I had a few drinks and definitely do not remember saying anything objectionable. lam sorry if I did.