AN ARTIST IN CRIME

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 April 1930, Page 9

AN ARTIST IN CRIME

A YOU XG woman named Helen Doyle sat in the dock at a Llondon court in February wearing a costly tnr coat and heard a detective call her “one of the most persistent and clevei hotel thieves in London.'’ Her counsel said she was “bound to the chariot wheels of a, band of international crooks.”

Doyle was convicted of receiving artlcies of jewellery worth £BSO which were partly the proceeds of robberies from big West End hotels. She was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. Detective-Sergeant Welsby said that in 1925 Doyle was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment on charges involving the theft of a tremendous quantity of jewellery from hotels in Kensington and the West End The woman, ho said, had taken a flat, ioi which she paid £25 a quarter, unfurnished. Eeceipts for household expenditure totalling £554 were found there when she was arrested. She had also spent a considerable sum on furniture. Her clothes were always bought at fashionable AVest End establishments. She had bought two or three fur coats, and the one she was wearing in the dock had cost o 9 guineas. “For more than two years the woman has been a tremendous source of

Pretty Young Woman

trouble to the police, especially at Kensington,” declared Sergeant AVeisby. ••She lias no associates and always uses taxicabs. Her method in ail cases is tc enter an hotel boldly as a guest, well dressc-d, as she always is, go to the top floors and enter rooms while the occupants are downstairs. On finding jewel cases or handbags she goes to the bathroom, locks herself in, extracts all the valuables, and walks out.

“Our difficulty has been the descriptions given of the thief. Some had said they saw a blonde and others a brunette* This is accounted for by her wearing a false hair such as this.” AVitness produced two fair-coloured side-pieces, and explained that when worn imder a hat gave the impression that Doyle was a blonde; without them she was a brunette.

In April’, 1927. ‘a jewel theft- was committed at a Kensington hotel, and a servant was suspected.

Doyle, in an assumed name as a guest, had occupied the adjoining room to that of the victim, and although she denied all knowledge of the theft, she disappeared after being interrogated. The total value of the property in thefts attributed to her was between £4OOO and £SOOO.