DAVID HARRIS FREE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4346, 4 January 1938, Page 7

DAVID HARRIS FREE

TELLS OF GAOL UNREST Bright-eyed and with a confident step, well-built David Harm walked into a flat overlooking Streatham Common, and was excitedly greeted by his beautiful platinum-blonde wife. He had arrived home after completing his term of five years, less remission for good conduct, in Maidstone Prison for complicity in the big fire conspiracy which ended in the Old Bailey trial of August, 1933. After embracing his wife, he picked up his three-year-old daughter, who is exactly like him and was born while he was in prison. It was not, as has been reported, Ills first sight of the little girl, for his wife had taken her to the prison with her when visiting her husband. “There is such a lot for ub to talk about,” Mr Harris said to his wife. “ It will be days before I have told you everything 1 want to say.” Mr Harris married Miss Gwendoline Stone, formerly a cashier at the Kit Cat Club, during a week-end adjournment of the Bow Street Police Court proceedings. They had a brief honeymoon before Mr Harris had to resume his place in the dock with the other defendants. “We are all particularly happy, Mi Harris said to a reporter, “ because the authorities were good enough to let me out some days earlier than I had anticipated. The only person who will feel my departure keenly will be my brother Leopold, who has always been my best pal. \\ e have worked at the same table in the various workshops in prison, we have joined together with other prisoners at recreation time \ a the evening. I should like to say th-.t Leopold has maintained his courage marvellously. “ He has every hope that the great assistance he has rendered to the police and the insurance companies will earn him a comparatively early release. From time to time he has had long conferences with interested parties, and has a wonderful head tor figures. “ My wife and I, to say nothing of our daughter, are going to start life anew. I have never been penniless; I managed to save a considerable sum before the proceedings began, and my wife has been in comfortable circumstances the whole of the time. I have already received several offers of remunerative employment, and I shall probably close with one of these in the near future. All my friends are being very kind. I have received a cordial message from Mr Loughborough Ball, one of my codefendants at the trial. Since his release from prison he lias been doing very well, and we are dining together next Wednesday. 1 ‘I was treated with the utmost consideration all the time by the authorities, and was on friendly terms with many of my follow-prisoners, including Clarence Hatrv, for whose stoical endurance I have the greatest admiration. Recently, however, there has been a certain amount of unrest amoiw the ex-service prisoners, who allege” that they owe their imprisonment to the fact that they were not given the jobs they had been promised when thev came out of the Army. “ Another factor of unrest is that word has gone round that there is to be no amnesty for certain classes «f prisoners at the Coionation.> men have been so incensed that the authorities have ceased to play the ‘ National Anthem ’ at the end of concerts because many of_ the prisoners have been hooting and jeenng. Partin" shot from Mr Harris:— “ I feel quite lost without a motor car. I intend to buy one at once.