“ Police Offer if I Caught Blackmailer”

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 79, 4 April 1938, Page 3

“ Police Offer if I Caught Blackmailer”

A man alleged at Croydon Bankruptcy Court that a Scotland Yard officer had told him the police would be prepared to excuse “very sericus felonies” in return for his collaboration against a suspected blackmailer.

During his public examination Arthur Lawrence Smithe, 40-year-old clerk, of Mowbray road, Upper Norwood, pointed dramatically across the court and declared: This man is admitted by Scotland Yard to be one of the most cunning blackmailers they have ever had to deal with—and now he is sitting in this court.”

At another stage of the hearing Smithe told the Official Kecciver, Mr Roy Waterer: “For the last few months the whole of my efforts have been guidod by Scotland Yard to trap this man. He just failed to fall into the trap.

“They told me at the Yard that they would be prepared to excuse me even very serious felonies —if I had committed them, which 1 have not —if 1 would collaborate with them.” Smithe mentioned a name which, he said, was that of a detective-inspector at Scotland Yard.

Asked by the Official Receiver why he had not disclosed in an affidavit that he was an undischarged bankrupt, Smithe replied: “If I had said * Yes 7 to that question instead of ‘No,’ and it had come to the blackmailer’s ears, any threat that he made against me would have been useless and his activities would have come to an end at the very moment when

Scotian'. Yard were ready to trap him.”

Once when Smithe accused the Official Receiver’s department of “collaborating with a blackmailer,’’ the registrar, Capt. Bruce Humfrcy, said sternly: ‘You must either withdraw that or be prepared to substantiate it elsewhere. ”

Smithe said that when he telephoned the man police officers told him to let him make an appointment. ‘‘We arranged to meet in a London teashop,” he said. “I was then taken to the Yard and introduced to two policewomen, and it was arranged that they should follow me into the shop and sit near enough to hear our conversation. “The man was to be introduced—if he could—to utter his threats. Everything worked well but for one thing. For some reason the policewomen did not see me enter. “The man uttered every threat, but there behind me, instead of the police, were two empty chairs.” Earlier Smithe had stated in reply to questions that he was disinherited by his father and that he had changed his name by deed poll from Kershaw to Smithe. He had served in the Army and gained the Military Cross. The hearing was adjourned.