CAT FOR ARMED THIEF

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 September 1933, Page 2

CAT FOR ARMED THIEF

JEKYLL & HYDE” EXISTENCE

A „ LONDON, July 26. ’°. u 1 ng 41 raan - of whom a police offiHvdn 1 - t ? at he lived a Jek y ]l anJ UnJ existence, sometimes an excellent valet and at other times a terror, £ oing about armed, was at the Old Bailey yesterday sentenced to three years’ penal servitude and twelve strokes of the cat. He was Dudley Gordon King, 25, a valet, convicted of robbing with violence Mr. Francis Salt at a Villiersstreet rifle range in July, 1932, and stealing three automatic pistols. He pleaded guilty to stealing a ■woman’s handbag from the May Fair Hotel, and asked that a further charge of theft should be taken into consideration.

Detective Sergeant Greenacre said King had no previous convictions. He seemed to have led rather a Jekyll and Hyde life and to have committed offences between his various employments.

“He has been an adventurous sort of person, and has behaved in a very cunning way,” the officer added. “Whenever I made inquiries I always heard that he was armed all the time. He is a man who always desires to possess firearms, and has been described as a terror.” The Recorder, Sir Ernest Wild, K.C., sentencing King, said: “You ruined a poor man for life in order to possess yourself of automatic pistols, wherewith to continue the gunman offences which have been so prevalent. The judges are determined that robbers with violence, particularly when they are armed, shall meet with condign punishment.”