LONDON POLICE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 31 January 1929, Page 5

LONDON POLICE

GRAFT IN THE WEST END.

NIGHT CLUBS PAY TRIBUTE. AFTERMATH OF GODDARD CASE. (United Press Association —By Klectric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) LONDON, Jan. 30. Police Sergeant Goddard, who was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment with hard labour, fined £2OOO and ordered to pay costs estimated at £2OOO is 60 years of age. The charge against him was that in April, 1926, being an agent within the meaning or the Prevention of Corruption Act, 19Q6, lie unlawfully and corruptly accepted and obtained for himself a certain gift and consideration in the form of a sum or £6O, as ah inducement qi* reward for sheaving favour or for forebearing to show disfavour to Luigi Achille Ribuffi, assistant manager of Uncle’s Club, Albemarle Street, Piccadilly in relation to the affairs qf his principal, the Commissioner of Police.

Luigi Achille Ribuffi, 48, of Homo Park Road,' Wimbledon, was charged with having in 1925 and 1926, unlawfully and corruptly given £l9O to Goddard as an inducement or reward for showing him favour or forebearing to show him disfavour; and Kate Evelyn Meyrick, 53, address declined, was similarly charged in respect of a sum of £4O alleged to have been given to Goddard in July, 1925. No decision lias been readied as to the legal ownership of Goddard’s hoard of £12,000 in bank notes seized by the police from a safe deposit. Goddard’s legal advisers are expected to institute proceedings for the return of the money, less the fine and oosts, contending that the money, however, acquired, is still Goddard’s.

POLICE GRAFT COMMON. The decision in the case lias produced the most outspoken newspaper comment. Tlie “Daily Express’.’ states the case lias opened the authorities’, eyes to a police scandal, which has been common knowledge for years. Everyone knowing anything of West End life was perfectly aware the proprietors of night clubs, gambling .dens and disorderly bpuj&es paid ireyguilar tribute to tbo police. Everyone accepted it as a commonplace except the higher police authorities. The. “Daily Express”, adds that Mrs Meyrick was at one time interested in five clubs. Her profits would be easily £IOOO per week. The “Daily Telegraph” states it can hardly be doubted that the recent dangerous cloud of suspicion in the public mind against the Metropolitan police is traceable in no small degree to scandals which .spread from the strange immunity enjoyed by some fashionable night clubs in London. The sentence passed by Sir Horace Avory may well have been intended to ‘have a sharply deterrent effect upon others.

FORTUNES NIGHT CLUBS. MRS. MEYRICK’-S AMAZING CAREER. Received 10.30 a.m. to-day. ‘ LONDON, Jan. 30. The newspapers this morning give startling figures of Kate Meyrick’s fortunes amassed in ten years in association with night clubs. It is stated that she contributed to Goddard at least £IOO per week, in 1919 she was assisting her 'husband, an Irish doctor to run a nursing home in Ireland. She left him with eight young children to rear on fifteen shillings a week. In a few years she was able to invest £27,- 1 000 from one club alone. iShe sent hex sons to Harrow public school and her daughters to Roedean and Girton. Two daughters married peers, Lords Kinnoull and De Clifford. Her income in 1928 was estimated at over £IOOO weekly. Her secret service was equal bo Scotland Yard’s. She employed ex-de-tectives in the disguise of various street callings to give warnings- of raids. She- became overconfident, admitting strangers to the “Fortythree”, club, which led to her undoing.