BLACKMAIL CHARGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 July 1930, Page 2

BLACKMAIL CHARGE

CAMBRIDGE ’ STUDENT A VICTIM.

LONDON, May 25.

Cambridge undergraduates * crowded into the public gallery to listen to a case brought by an American research student, who was referred to at the police court as “Mr H.,” who alleged that money was obtained from him by conspiracy and menaces. The men charged' were described as Leon Victor Hartard (alias Albert Jones), (20), chaffeur mechanic, charged with conspiring' with John Henry Wylde, cook, Thomas Edward Pearce (24), motor mechanic, Ted Lewis (29), mechanic, and Patrick Quirk (20), professional dancer, and obtaining a cheque for £4O. Quirk was also charged with demanding £lO with menaces. It was requested that the prosecutor’s naihe should not be made public. Mr Justice MacNaghten was the judge, and in charging the Grand Jury said that the facts of the case were very short and simple. In the early morning of Thursday, February 13, a motor car in which were five persons arrived at the lodging of a gentleman in Cambridge. Three, of the occupants, Hartard, Wylde, and Quirk, desired to see him. “At 4 a.m.,” the judge said, “the landlady was roused, and she roused the gentleman,"who said that that was not the time at which he could see them. They must come later. They came at 6 a.m., and there is no question about this; according to the evidence of the prosecutor, the three men, Hartard, Wylde and Quirk, came into his room and then obtained a cheque for £3O from him, which was immediately cashed. Fraud and fear were, according to the prosecutor, the means whereby he was induced to draw that cheque and part with it. “According to his evidence, they told him that the man Quirk had been arrested on a charge of indecent conduct and that the prosecutor, who had known Quirk in London would be a necessary witness in the case and would have to appear. They did not suggest that he had done anything whereby he could be charged with Quirk. The cheque was required, as to £2O, for the purpose of satisfying the man who they said had gone bail for Quirk. They said that a bookmaker, who was in the car outside had gone bail for .him in £2O, and the proposal apparently was that the bookmaker should be recouped of the £2O and the additional £lO was to enable Quirk to return to what was said to be his native land—the Irish Free State—and after Quirk had gone there, there would be no more heard about the case.

“It seems clear that this story told to the prosecutor was a pack of lies. Quirk had not been charged with indecency or released on hail, and there was no bookmaker who had gone bail and no necessity for Quirk to retire to his native land. If that, evidence is true, it seems clear that, the £3o' was obtained from the prosecutor by fraud and false pretences, and obtained by fear acting on the mind of the prosecutor (hat unless he paid the £3O then he would be mixed up in a very unsavoury case. There seems to be no doubt that there were five persons in the car on that Thursday morning.”

The judge added that there was evidence of Pearce being the man who was driving the car. There was a further charge against. Quirk that a, fortnight- later, acting by himself, he obtained a further sum of £lO from the prosecutor. The five men apparently came all the way from London at that early hour of the morning. The Grand Jury returned a true bill against all five men for felony. The five men made a brief appearance in the dock. They were all well dressed and youthful in appearance. AU, with the exception of Lewis, asked for counsel to be allotted to them, and tin’s was done. Lewis however, shook his head. “I would rather not have counsel,” he said. The judge said that it was a case of some seriousness, and ho would take it on Monday.