SHADOWED BY TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 22632, 26 April 1937, Page 1

SHADOWED BY TRAGEDY

RELEASE OF " OFFICER 111 THE TOWER" “ What happiness my release Has, given me is overshadowed by tha tragic circumstances surrounding it.”‘ Within three hours of his release frojHj Maidstone Prison last month, ex-Lieut* Norman Baillie-Stewart —“ the Officer 1 , in the Tower ” —addressed these words, to me when he arrived in London on his way to attend his father’s funeral at Bristol (says a writer in the ‘ Daily Mail'). Still a soldierly figure, slim _ and with the same neatly-clipped ginger? moustache, Mr Baillie-Stewart, who ia 27, has changed little since he was sentenced in 1933 to five years’ penal servitude for betraying secrets to ai foreign Power. There was, however, one notable difference. Thick, horn-rimmed! spectacles, with heavy lenses, covered his eyes, while his face was pale. It was of his father —Lieut.-colonel Cronhope Baillie-Wrightr—that he preferred "to talk, and there could be no mistaking the sincerity with which he spoke. (Ex-Lieut. Baillie-Stewarti changed his name by deed poll soma years ago.) “ By my father’s death, on the eve almost of my return to my. home, X have lost one of my dearest possessions,” he said. “ Never once did my father’s faith in my. innocence falter.. No man could have done more to maintain the honour of his son. “ I was stunned when the news of his death was broken to me by the Governor of Maidstone Prison, Major B. G. Grew. I was in a hospital ward at the time suffering from_ influenza* and I immediately asked if I could petition the ’Home Secretary for my release. The officials at the prison were sympathetic, and! I knew that my mother, who has been, such a source of comfort to me on her visits to the prison, would do everything possible in London to enable me to attend the funeral. This morning 1 was informed that the Home Secretary'had favourably considered the position and waa told to prepare for my release for the afternoon. •

“ What plans I had in mind for the future have ! been crushed by my father’s death. My whole concern for the -present is to comfort my mother in her hour of-distress, . Bah, I will never, give up the fight to vindicate my honour and that of the regiment—the Seaforth Highlanders—to which I was so proud tq .belong.” ■■ I understand that it was largely as a result of Mrs Baillie-Wright’s personal appeal to the Home Office that her son secured his release about two weeks before the correct time. The drama of hie ' release' was swift-moving. A- telephone call was received from the' Home Office by the governor of the prison about ; noon, and two hours afterwards a car, drew; up at the main gates. Two men were admitted. At 3 o’clock Mr Baillie-Stewart left the gaol in a taxicab, in which he travelled to Maidstone _ East where he boarded a-train for Victoria.He was accompanied by three men in civilian clothes and a clergyman. Prisoner No. 186 was how Mr BaillieStewart was known in prison, where ha has served his sentence with Clarence* Hatry and Leopold Harris. • His work consisted largely in preparing old books for rebinding in the printing room, where Harris has spent much of his time. One of the few friendships made among his fellowconvicts was that of a- deaf and dumb prisoner. He saw this pathetic little man only on parade, at exercise, or in the prison library, and they conversed in signs. When this man was released early last year Mr Baillie-Stewart became the loneliest inan in prison.