SECRET CHANNEL CROSSING

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3969, 7 October 1930, Page 7

SECRET CHANNEL CROSSING

FSMiGN MERCHANT’S) OFFENCE A merchant named George Medawar alias Millard, who is said to have chartered a boat at Boulogne and secretly landed in England in defiance of a deportation order, was charged at Marylebone wich landing at Southend without leave of the emigration officer, and failing to register as an alien. Medawar, aged forty-three, refused to give Ids address Detective-sergeant Stevens said that lie and Detective Flash saw accused in Xew street, Maryiebone. They knew he had been deported to France in 1927, after serving a sentence of five months in the second division for obtaining credit without disclosing that he was an undischarged bankrupt. In a statement made later, and signed, he said he was a “ French protege, ’ and came, to England in 1913 as a merchant Wncn the war broke out lie was aii inquiry agent at the French Consulate, and he remained in that position until 1916. Meanwhile he had been carrying on his private business, but shortly afterwards be met. with financial disaster. After being deported be wrote to the of Police, asking to he allowed to return to collect a large debt and to pay his creditors 20s in the £l. He explained that he had entrusted a man in Pails with a large sum to invest u England on behalf of a French financial, group; the man had disappeared and he wanted to come to England U trace linn. He was told that he could put the matte* ii the hands of a French solicitor am! that the French and English police would he p him, but the deportation order must stand Fared with this refusal, he chartered a boat at Boulogne at a cost of £lll. and landed at Southend with two other men. He ha* no intention of defying the English law, but he was more or less compelled ’ey the financial group to come ovei here to find and sue his agent, as he was threatened with a charge of conspiracy The magistrate sent him to prison for one month for landing without leave, concurrently with fourteen days for failing to registm himself as an alien.