Kidnapping Story Denied By Thornton; Fact Or Fiction?

Northern Advocate, 22 July 1938, Page 5

Kidnapping Story Denied By Thornton; Fact Or Fiction?

(Received 1.30 p.m) LONDON, July 21. QN THE RESUMPTION OF THE TRIAL OF JOHN BRUCE THORNTON. FOR ALLEGEDLY PLOTTING TO KIDNAP VISCOUNT NUFFIELD, THE ACCUSED, GIVING EVIDENCE, DENIED THE WHOLE OF ARTHUR JEFFERY RAMSDEN’S ALLEGATION REGARDING THE KIDNAPPING, WHICH HE DECLARED TO BE RID ICULOUS. He added that he had been a member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club since 1926 and had owned surgical instruments and firearms for years, as the latter might be useful when yachting in foreign waters. “When Ramsden asked me to get an interview with Lord Nuffield regarding a carburetter in which he was interested,” he continued. “I replied that I did not know Lord Nuffield.” “The question was never discuss ed by me.” he said, “or by Ramsden in my presence.”

► Referring to the letter which he v/as alleged to have prepared to hand to Lord Nuffield if someone else was in the room when he wanted to kidnap him, Thornton said it was part of his cinema story which Ramsden had suggested. He explained that the letter was not originally headed “To Lord Nuffield,” but on May 24 he discovered that those words had been inserted. When the judge asked to see the cinema story, Thornton produced a document which he said had been written in prison at the request of his solicitor, adding that the story had been written and destroyed many times.