DAVID HARRIS FREE

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 July 1937, Page 12

DAVID HARRIS FREE

TELLS OF GAOL UNREST Bright-eyed and with a confident step, well-built David Harris walked into a flat overlooking Streatham Common, and was excitedly greeted bv his beautiful platinum-blonde wife. 'He had arrived home after completing his term of five years, less remission for good conduct, in Alumstone Prison for complicity in the big (ire conspiracy, which ended the Old Bailey trial of August. 1933. After embracing his wife he picked up his three-year-old daughter, who is exactly like him. and was born "'“de he was in prison. It was not, as has been reported, his first sight ot the little girl, for his wife had taken her to the prison with her when visiting her husband. “There is such a lot for us to talk about," Mr. Harris said to his wife. ••It will be days before 1 have told you everything I want to say. ’ Mr. Harris married Miss Gwendoline Stone, formerly a cashier at the Kit Cat Club, during a week-end adjournment of the Bow Street Ponce Court proceedings. They had a brief honeymoon before Mr. Harris ,hnd to resume his place in the dock with the other defendants. t> “We are all particularly happy, Mr. Harris said to a reporter, “because the authorities were good enough to let me out some days earlier than 1 had anticipated. The only person who will feel my departure keenly will be my brother Leopold, who has always been my best pal. We have worked at the same table in the various workshops in prison, we have joined together with other prisoners at recreation time in the evening. I should like to say that Leopold has maintained his courage marvellously. “He has every hope that the great assistance he has rendered to the police and the insurance companies will earn him a comparatively early release. From time to time he has had long conferences with interested parties and has a wonderful head for figures. "Mv wife and 1, to say nothing of our daughter, are going to start life anew. I have never been penniless; I managed to save a comfortable sum ncfore the proceedings began, and my wife has been in comfortable circumstances the whole of the time. I have already received several offers ot remunerative employment, and 1 shall probably close with one of these in me near fu*ure. All my friends are being very kind. I have received a cordial message from Mr. Loughborough Ball, one of my co-dcfendants at. tiie trial. Since his release from prison h c - has been doing- very well, ana we are dining together next Wednesday.

“[ was treated with the utmost consideration all the time by the authorities, and was on friendly terms with manv of my fellow prisoners, including Clarence Hatry. for whose stoical endurance I have the greatest admiration. Recently, however, there lias been a. certain amount of unrest among- the- ex-Service prisoners, who allege that they owe their imprisonment to the fact that they were not given Hie jobs they had been promised when they came out of the Army. “Another factor of unrest, is that word has gone round that there is to be no amnesty for certain classes ot prisoners at the Coronation. Some men have been so incensed that the authorities have ceased to play the National Anthem at the end of concerts because many of the prisoners have been booing and jeering." Failing shot from Mr. Harris: — “I feel quite lost without a motorcar. I intend to buy one at once.”