‘POISON’ LETTERS WRITER

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 8

‘POISON’ LETTERS WRITER

CAUGHT AFTER 25 YEARS? LONDON, November 7. A series of mysterious letters which worried the authorities during the Great Wyrley maiming cases of 1903, were mentioned at Stafford Assizes, yesterday, when Enoch Knowles, 57, labourer, of Park Street, Darlaston, was sentenced to tliree years’ penal servitude. Knowles pleaded guilty to sending communications through the post, threatening to murder, and containing indecent and abusive words. Mr. A. J. Long, prosecuting, said accused had been brought to book through the astuteness of a post-office official. Threatening and abusive letters had been sent to witnesses who had given evidence in various trials at the Stafford Assizes, while similarly worded letters were sent to the judges who had tried the cases. He wrote to one woman who had given evidence in a case and described himself as “Jack the Ripper, of Whitechapel.”

Mr. Long said it had been established that prisoner had admitted that he wrote a. long series of _ mysterious letters during the Great Wyrley cattlemaiming cases in 1903, when a solicitor named Edalji was sent to penal servitude for seven years but subsequently received the King’s pardon.

Following the trial, all sorts of people who had been connected with the case got letters indicating that, in spite of the conviction mannings would go on.

Letters were received giving the times and places where mannings would take place. Most of the letters purported to come from a person who signed himself “Darby, Captain of the Wyrley Gang.” These matters caused the greatest public concern. Knowles joined the Army in 191 G. Then in 1919 he married, and until 1931 matters were all quiet. In 1931 he become implicated in a county court action, and he apparently had this curious desire again, sending letters to a bailiff on matters that had nothing to do with him at all. “On one occasion he wrote a very cruel letter to a member of the Royal family,” Mr. Long added. “The police and the Post Office authorities have been for years trying to find out who was writing these letters.” Letters were stopped, and many letters and post cards did not go through. Then one day a person in a sorting office found a. postcard addressed to Droitwich signed “Enoch and Lizzie.” It was in the same writing as some of the letters. The police discovered that there was a man living in Darlaston named Enoch with a wife named Lizzie.

The police also went through certain signatures that had been signed for council houses, and found that Knowles’s tallied with the handwriting on the letters.

NEVER UNDER SUSPICION A remarkable feature, observed Mr. Long, was that Superintendent Hall, who was now engaged in the case, when a police officer, found one of Knowles's communications many years ago on a pit mound. Supt. .1. H. Hall, of Wednesbury, handed in a list of letters either received by people or stopped in the post office by the authorities, and said that Knowles had admitted the authorship of them. Knowles had a good character at work and in the Army. Mr. Justice Macnaghten: There was no reason for suspecting him? —He has never been under suspicion at all. Supt. Hall described Knowles as “just an ordinary labourer.” The letters, which went on year after year, caused a tremendous amount of alarm and concern. Knowles had made a statement that he had been writing letters for over twenty-five years. Mr. H. A. Tucker, defending, said that an extraordinary feature of the case was that Knowles was able to fight against this “obsession or disease” until he had started again in 1931. The reason Knowles had given him (counsel) was that, he had written the letters at times when he had been worried over his work, or was not in the best of health. Knowles had never the slightest intention of doing anybody any harm, and he had never put his hand on anybody. In passing sentence, the judge said he took into account Knowles’ age and his previous good character. It was impossible to imagine a graver case of kind. • ;