DRAMATIC APPEAL

Evening Star, Issue 19893, 15 June 1928, Page 7

DRAMATIC APPEAL

YOUNG MAN'S REQUEST HIS-■ SENTENCE' REDUCED. Speaking with a pronounced “ Oxford ” drawl, with his hands clasping the lapels of a well-cut black coat, Richard Borehara Boreham, twenty-two, made a dramatic speech from tho dock when his case camo tip before the Court of Criminal Appeal. Borehara had been sentenced at . the last Essex Quarter Sessions to twenty-one months’hard labour for obtaining by false pretences 10s from the rector of Great Easton, an Essex village, by what was described as “ a bold and ingenious lie.” Addressing the court slowly and very deliberately, Boreham observed: “Kindly banish from your minds, if possible, all my past history. You will appreciate that I have suffered for my past misdeeds. I also ask you to believe that 1 have tried to do better, but that I am tho victim of circumstances, of environment, and bad luck.” Describing tho sentence that had been passed on him as “proportionately and comparatively” very severe, Boreham suggested that tweuty-ono months in a local prison and precipitation into “the cesspool of London was not conducive to reformation at the age of twenty-two years. “T am willing to work,” he went on, “and 1 have made honest endeavours since my last release from gaol in February, 1926. 1 read with an undergraduate at Oxford, and your learned confrere, Lord Darling, gave pa o il reference to a city solicitor, but I was not proficient, and I got £1 a week.” . Here Boreham made a gesture or disgust and added. : “ This is a case, in which I have allowed myself to drift because I have not had the opportunities other men get. I therefore ask yon to reduce ny sentence, which is, us 1 have already alleged, out of proportion to my crime.” 'The Lord Chief Justice stated that Boreham, who was described as a schoolmaster, called on August 14 at a rectory at Great Easton. He told the rector that ho was a member of the University of Oxford and an Oriel man, although he had not taken his degree. He explained that be bad come to Oxford to see a certain lady of high rank, who he had failed to find, and upon whom he had some sort of claim iqr assistance, because, as he alleged, his people in more prosperous times bad entertained her. He had not the money with which to pay his fare back to Oxford. The rector believed bis tale and gave him 10s, but subsequent inquiries from the authorities at Oriel College showed that he had never been a student there. This was a bold and ingenious lie, and it was not his first offence by any means. In 1918 he was convicted of theft, and in that year, and again in 1923, he was sent to a reformatory. In 1924 he was convicted again for false pretences and sent to gaol for a month, while, in 1925, he wont to prison again, this time for six months, for two offences of false pretences. Notwithstanding the lenTent way ho was treated, he would not reform. It was clear that, with a little more courage and experience, he would become a dangerous criminal, and the court could well imagine that the chairman of Sessions considered his a case for severe sentence. However, looking at the intrinsic importance of the case, the whole of the circumstances, and, not least, Boroham’s youth, they were of. opinion that the sentence might well be reduced to one of twelve months’ hard labour. That would bo the last time any sort of leniency would be shown appellant. Boreham bowed and expressed Ins thanks, to which the Lord Chief Justice rejoined; “The best way to thank us is to commit no more crimes.” “ [ will not,” was the reply.