PRISONERS’ RUSES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 1 September 1926, Page 7

PRISONERS’ RUSES

TO SUGGEST SICKNESS

GAOL DOCTOR’S STORY

Interesting evidence relating to the ruses adopted by prisoners to malic gaol doctor's think taey are seriously i,l were related at the Sydney Quarter Sessions recently by Lie. lee mown, medical oilicer at the State penitentiary.

He was reporting to the trial judge on tlie condition of a. young man named George to ope r, of Fairburn, who Jiad p.eaued guilty to three charges ot breaking and entering at Tam worth, and who had begged Judge Edwards to treat him leniently, .tie to id, the judge that he was doomed, as he lia<l cancer or the stomach, and had been unsuccessfully operated on already. In an attempt to convince the judge, cooper said that he had been released i'.oiii Thitluirst gaol because -of illliealth.

••And they don’t do that unless you are- half-dead,” lie added. Judge Edwards confessed that he had been pained by the accused’s story of liis infirmities, and be called Dr. Lee Brown, who has had Cooper under •observation for weeks.

, General surprise was’evidenced when the doctor stated that even X-ray examinations failed', to reveal anything organically wrong with Cooper. in fact,* by the simple test of giving him a square meal,. the gaol authorities were able to - ascertain definitely that he was perfectly sound.

Dr Brown said that cunning criminals. in which class he would place Cooper, resorted to nil manner ot ruses to make believe they were sick men. Some of them ate ‘soap and other irritants to bring about a condition which suggested ulcerated stomach —a. condition difficult to disprove He also suggested that while Cooper was in Bathurst* Gaol he had tricked several medical men with his self-made symptoms.

Judge Edwards was astounded, and tod Cooper, that he could not believe s, word he said. He sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment.