CLEMENTS CASE OPENS WITH INQUEST ON THREE PEOPLE

Evening Star, Issue 26136, 25 June 1947, Page 5

CLEMENTS CASE OPENS WITH INQUEST ON THREE PEOPLE

(Rec. 11 a.in.) LONDON, June It. The coroner, addressing the jury at the opening of the inquest into the death of Dr Robert George Clements (67) on May 30, the day fixed for his fourth wife’s funeral, disclosed that anonymous information which the police received just before Clements died led him to institute investigations into the circumstances of both deaths and to order suspension of Mrs Clements’s funeral. The Coroner said that the circumstances of Clements’s past life, which the Press later so widely reported, had in no way influenced him in making this order. The coroner simultaneously inquired into the deaths of Clements’s fourth wife, Amy Victoria Clements (47), and of Dr James Montague Houston (39), who performed an autopsy on her, and who was found dead in his laboratorj’ at Southport on June 2. The coroner warned the jury that they were not, inquiring whether Clements destroyed the lives of his three previous wives or whether he practised illegal operations. “ Clements must enter this case as a decent, law-abiding cjtizeh,” he said. DR HOLMES’S EVIDENCE.

Dr John Holmes testified that because of the symptoms the fourth wife displayed during and after December, 1946, he told Dr Clements that he thought .the wife should go to the Southport infirmary near Clements’s home for further examination. Clements, however, said his wife had a great disinclination to go to hospital, and he feared he would not be able to persuade her. Dr Holmes added that when he called at the flSt on two or three subsequent occasions he was unable to gain admittance. Dr Holmes added that Clements telephoned him on Mnv 26 that his wife was unconscious and that lie was sending her to a nursing home. Dr Holmes said he went to the nursing home, and there Clements told him that his wife had collapsed during a walk after the evening meal. Dr Holmes said he was present later when Dr Houston began the autopsy, but he left before it was finished. Dr Houston next day told him that Mrs Clements had myeloid leukaemia, and that, another doctor agreed with his opinion.

Dr Holmes told, the coroner that he was then satisfied as to the cause of death and he certified accordingly. THE POST MORTEM. Dr Holmes, relying to the coroner, said Dr Houston, carried out a post mortem on an ordinary hospital bed, which was not an ideal place for it. Someone told him later that Dr Houston had taken certain organs i-away through a Southport street in a bucket. Dr Holmes added that he never suspected poison. He had asked for a post mortem to confirm the earlier diagnosis he had made.

Continuing his evidence Dr Holmes denied that he had asked Dr Houston not to tell the police about the post mortem. He also denied that Dr Houston said that he intended to tell the police and hold nothing back and also denied that lie said to Dr Houston in the'post mortem room,: “She might have been murdered’-for all that I know.” Dr Holmes said that he did not think that myeloid leukaemia, which Dr Houston said caused death, was sufficiently severe to be the cause. He did not indicate any other conclusion in the death certificate. He did not 'know in fact what had been the cause of death, but he had heard rumours. POISONING SUSPECTED. Doctor Andrew Brown, of Southport, said that lie first examined Mrs Clements last New Year’s Day. He could find nothing wrong except what he regarded as toxaemia and slight anaemia. He examined her again on May 26, when he concluded that she was suffering from morphine poisoning. He decided that in the event of Mrs Clements’s death he would report the matter to the coroner before the funeral because lie felt it was either a ease of suicide or homicide. He told Dr Houston after the post mortem on May 30 that he suspected that Mrs : Clements 'had died of morphine poisoning. Dr Houston replied : “ I wish to God I’d known of this sodner.” Dr Brown said he was certain that Dr Houston was not aware of. any suspicion of poisoning.

Mrs Amy Stevens, of Southport, said that she was very friendly, with Da and Mrs Clements and just before last Christinas Clements visited her and said that his wife was “ very poorly.” Other doctors-had told him that it was only a matter of time The hearing was adjourned.