A Woman Put Out of Prison

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 230, 30 September 1935, Page 3

A Woman Put Out of Prison

“Prisoner 1692,” Miss Pay Taylour, woman racing motorist, who went voluntarily to Holloway gaol to serve a week’s imprisonment rather than pay a£l fine for exceeding the 30 miles an hour speed limit, was “put out” of prison on Juno 25. The line was paid by a “Daily Express” reporter on the previous day, four hours after she entered the prison, but she vainly insisted on remaining there. When seen later in tho day at her fiat she said she was not at all pleased that the line had been paid.

“I wanted to serve the week’s imprisonment as a protest against the absurd speed limit,” Miss Taylour said. “1 did not go to prison as a joke, and I realise that a week there would not have been a very pleasant experience. Paying the lino has spoiled it all. I protested when tho woman deputy governor told mo I would have to leave. She insisted I should go, and in the end they virtually put me out. “A prison official gavo me five shillings to pay my taxicab fare home. I shall, of course, pay that back. As I was leaving the prison, I asked that the bill for my board and lodging should be sent to Mr Hore-Belisha, the Minister of Transport. “I had changed into prison clothes when I was told on Monday evening that a man had paid the fine and that I was to go out. When I was taken before the deputy governor I said I refused to have my line paid by a stranger, and that I was determined to serve the week’s imprisonment. “Tinally, I had to sign a document stating that I did not know the man who had paid the fine, and that I did not wish to be released. I was then locked up in a cell. I went straight to bed, and was so tired that I slept for nine hours. I did not even hear tho bell go in the morning, and was late for exercise.

“During the preliminaries after I entered the prison I was put for a time in a cell in the reception block. There I made friends with a cat, and also took several photographs of the cell! and of the corridor with a camera 1 had taken into prison with other belongings. That, of course, was done before my things were searched and checked.

“Tho point I have tried to make is that if every motorist convicted under this new speed limit refused to pay the fine and went to prison, an alteration would soon be made in the law.”