'DAILY EXPRESS’ SUED

Evening Star, Issue 19791, 15 February 1928, Page 4

'DAILY EXPRESS’ SUED

EXPLORER'S LIBEL ACTION “ OPENING OF THE DEFENCE.” LONDON, February 14. Opening the defence in the MitchellHedges libel action, Mr W. A. Jowitt, K.0.,’ said; “I suggest that Hedges \s an ompostor, and making a claim he cannot substantiate. No doubt he has been at Panama, and has talked with

Indians, and had certain interesting experiences, but a man who has written upp those experiences as Hedges has done is an impostor.” William Shaw, a chartered acc„.intant, of Dublin, one of the attackers, detailed the abortive hold-up on January 6 and the successful attempt on Januarv 14, when Kenneth Taylor was ■!«d up, but neither Hedges nor Edgell was knocked down or hurt in any way. Edgell deliberately made the grass untidy in order to suggest, that a scuffle had taken place. The whole thing as a prank to advertise monomarks, the idea being that Hedges’s bag should be discovered in a sensational manner by means of a monomark. Cross-examined, Shaw admitted that after Hedges issued the writ against t’e ‘Daily Express’ ho (Shaw) signed a statement to Hedges’s solicitor t Hedges and Edgell were in no way privy to the hoax. Shaw added 'bat he was now thoroughly ashamed of having signed the statement. [The explorer M F. A. MitchellHedg es is claiming damages from the ‘ Dauy Express ’ for libel, allegedly contained in a> report to the effect that his hold-up of January 14, 1927, was a hoax and a publicity enterprise.] MRS WINSTON CHURCHILL OPERATION FOR MASTOIDITIS MAKING SATISFACTORY PROGRESS. (British Official News.) Pres* Association—By Wireless-Copyright. RUGBY, February 13. M : Churchill, the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has undergone an operation for acute mastoiditis. She is making satisfactory progress.