FARTHING DAMAGES FOR GIRL'S FRIEND.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 30 April 1937, Page 2

FARTHING DAMAGES FOR GIRL'S FRIEND.

"VERY PROPER AMOUNT," SAYS JUDGE One farthing damages—"a very proper amount," commented the Lord Chief Justice of England—was awarded to a man for alleged assault. The case was that in which Keginaid Duff, of Longman House, Southwick, Sussex, sued Charles Broadley, jun., of Farthingloe Farm, near Dover. The jury made the award 'without leaving the box. Mr Eric Neve (for Duff) had asked for the case to be taken with another by Gertrude Theedom, of Winchelseastreet, Folkestone road, Dover, who claimed damages from Broadley for the alleged seduction of her daughter Joan. The assault, he said, occurred while Duff was interviewing Broadley about the seduction. Lord Hewart, however, decided that the assault case should be heard first, and when that was disposed of the second case was withdrawn, an agreement having been reached. While Duff was giving, evidence Mr Neve referred to a letter of June 3 (written by Duff to Broadley), which was read in court.

In this letter Duff suggested that Broadley should pay Miss Theedom £3OO and ended: "You have your choice. Let me hear by return on the matter."

Mr Neve: Is that a letter that you now very much regret having written? Mr Duff: Yes, I wrote it at a moment of great stress, when I was filled with the injustice of the whole business.

You agree it is a letter you ought never to have written?—Entirely. Did Broadley give you any sort of satisfactory answer when you saw him? —None whatever. He showed a callous indifference. But he did say he would have done something had I not writtten that unfortunate letter, upon which he said he proposed to sue me for blackmail. Replying to the Lord Chief Justice. Duff said, it was not true that a full report had been made to the police. "Was that a lie?" asked Lord Hewart. The reply was "Yes." This Jetter was written four months J before the birth of the child. You mention a doctor's certificate. That was a lie?—Yes. You wrote: "I have arranged for an extensive amount of publicity to be given to the matter"? Another lie?—• ! Yes. You wrote: "A criminal action for which a further action is pending." Another lie?—Yes. Have you ever studied the law relating to attempts to obtain money by menace?—No. Lord Hewart: Don't you think that it is exactly the sort of letter which would provoke a breach of the peace? Duff made no reply. In evidence Broadley said he hit Duff because Duff called him by a certain, name. He was not the father of the child, he added. Mr Neve: Would it be wrong to say that you have an unsavoury reputation in Dover as far as young girls are concerned?—lt would be wrong. Were you fined £2OO the other day for smuggling by aeroplane?—Yes. Summing up, Lord Hewart said that in more than one passage the letter might be regarded as a blackmailing letter. "And you know from the testimony of the author that it is a pack of lies," he added.