FIRE CONSPIRACY CASE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 211, 19 August 1933, Page 7

FIRE CONSPIRACY CASE

LONGEST TRIAL IN HISTORY OF OLD BAILEY.

CONVICTIONS ON VARIOUS CHARGES.

(Received 19, 1.20 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 18.

After a 34 days’ trial — the longest in the history of the Old

Bailey, the previous being 23 days —the ten accused of fire conspiracy were convicted on various charges, in addition to four who, besides Harris and Jarvis, pleaded guilty. The case wan remarkable' for the first 'installation of the “whispering telephone” in Court, communicating with the solicitors’ office in the Old Bailey, enabling the speedy production of documents, of which 15,000 were involved.

The 32 charges were so complicated that counsel, in recording the verdicts, used a chart in black and white squares which when completed, resembled a crossword puzzle. Mr. Justice Humphreys, in a three days’ summing-up spoke 100,000 words.

He declared that Capsoni was the most despicable type of criminal, the blackmailer. “I shall not be able to pass on him the sentence he richly deserves,”, he said. “The lowest depths of infamy were perhaps reached when Capsoni’s wretched wife was sent to do the actual burning.”

Counsel have begun their addresses in mitigation of sentences. It is estimated that the case has cost £lOO,OOO, which insurance companies and Lloyd’s are paying because they believe that they have been systematically deprived of £500,000 a year by fraudulent claims, which the prosecution aimed to stamp out.

An incendiarist conspiracy existing since 1925, backed by a central organisation which had secured an amount running into six figures, was alleged against 13 men and women charged at Bow street in March with conspiring to defraud insurance companies. The prosecution alleged that Leopold Louis Harris, an assessor, headed the organisation. He, with the other accused, started companies and financial businesses, in London and other places, filled the premises with junk, effected insurance for grotesque sums, and when fires occurred presented inflated claims. In one instance invoices were alleged to have been fabricated. The prosecution said that an Italian named Capsoni, and his wife, claimed to have started five fires. They were not accused, but would be witnesses. Capsoni claimed to be deep in the organisation’s plans and the prosecution was using him as an “instrument of justice.” They had paid him £5 a week for six months, but relied on him only when his story was corroborated by their own discoveries during the two years’ investigations they had made. Counsel added that it was learned that Harris had six businesses burned in three years and had put at least £30,000 in his pocket. Accused were remanded on bail aggregating £95,000. “I set fire to it,” was the confession Capsoni made three times in reply to the prosecution’s queries as to bow fires at Manchester and Leeds started. Another accused, Vincent Cope, was charged with firing a warehouse at Wembley.