DIED ROBBING A CHURCH

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1934, Page 4

DIED ROBBING A CHURCH

FELO DE SE VERDICT. LONDON, October 1. Recording a verdict of felo de se on a man who was burned to death in the act of robbing a church, the coroner (Dr P. B. Skeels) said at a Loughton (Essex) inquest yesterday: “He was called to face his Maker while he was actually robbing God Himself. It seems that the Powers that be had ordained that he should end his life on this earth in the way in which he had been conducting it. “If he himself had been saved and others burned, he would have been guilty of murder. He himself, • however, died as the result of the /ire. That means that he unlawfully killed himself while he was in the commission of an unlawful offence, verdict must be one of felo de se.” The man was Alfred Springbelt Noakes, 56, of Friern-road, East Dulwich. His charred body was found in the ruins of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Edmund of Canterbury, Trapps-hill, Loughton, on Monday night, after it had been practically destroyed by fire. “This man had .a long history of crime, going back to 1901,” said the coroner. “His first, crime recorded was that of breaking into a church and opening an offertory box, and he had continued this class of crime right up .to the present. “JUDGMENT WRITTEN.” “1 am satisfied he was on the premises for the purpose of committing a crime—that is, of helping himself, to the money in the offertory boxes.” The coroner was ’ satisfied that when the man was using matches, or, it might be, a candle, some tapestry or one of the seats in the church became lighted. He was too intent on his work and on getting away with the spoils to notice that the flame was kindling from behind him, perhaps as the result of a match which he had thrown down, and which he thought was out, but which was alight. “So was his judgment being written for him,” said the coroner. Mrs Anna Maria Noakes, the widow said her husband only came home on June 25 after serving a sentence of two years for robbing an offertory box in a church. He had been arrested many times. Inspector William Bayley said a theory was that Noakes either took a candle from the altar or had a candle in his possession, which he placed on the floor.

“I was of opinion that he accidentally stepped back and the flame of the candle caught his trousers,” he added. “He either fainted on seeing the flames or collapsed through shock, and then ho fell.” Det.-Scrgeant Smith said that on Tuesday be had occasion to go to St. Mary’s Church Hall, which had been 'entered. At this hall a key was reported as stolen. A key found on the body of the dead man was definitely identified by the caretaker as belonging to St. Mary’s Church. Noakes had been fourteen times in the hands of the police. Most of his convictions were for offences relating to money boxes in churches or being found in churches. _____