BAD MAN OF LONDON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

BAD MAN OF LONDON.

OPIUM OFFENCES. LONG SENTENCE IMPOSED. ■" Ee is well described as the worst man in London," said a detective at the London sessions recently, concerning Edgar Manning, aged thirty.nine, a coloured man. Manning appeared with Albert. Payne, aje-d twenty-nine, a ship s cook, Ralph Alfred Trackman, aged twenty, a steward, and Dora Lippack. aged twenty-nine, a married woman. They, all gave an address a.t St. Anne's Court, Soho, and denied stealing property belonging to Lady Diana Duff Cooper. Manning and Lippack. who were stated t:> have been living together, also pleaded not guilty to a- further charge of stealing property belonging to Miss Jans Service Carmichael. The chairman directed the jury to find all the persons not guilty on the charge of stealing and to concentrate their attention solely on charges ot receiving. The jury found them guilty on all counts of receiving. The detective gave an astonishing account of Manning's career. He sa;d that Manning was a notorious trafficker in drugs. ~ He was -first convicted in September. 1920. when he received sixteen months' bard labour at the Old Bailey for unlawful wourrdintt Manning was a special order of the Secretary of State in •Tune, "S2l, and at Marlborough Street, in April. 1922', be received- six months and one month concurrently for being in possession of cocaine and opium, and. in July, 1925. twelve months for a similar offence. " This man. was born in Jamaica, was known in 192.1 to be traffic* ragrn d--u2= " the detective added. in xv&u a'man died from an overdose of drugs and there was reason to believe -nat. Manning had supplied them He wa? found in the same year m the house 01 3 Greek woman who has since been deported for being concerned in the traffic of drugs. , " Ally in the same year a woman died from cocaine poisoning. and_ information was received that Manning had supplied dr Spack C was stated to be a Russian, ami a plausible woman. Manning was sentenced to three jea.s Penal servitude on each of three counts, the sentences to run concurrent!;.. Lippack was sentenced to nine month, hard labour and recommended for deportation Trackman was remanded in cust;odv until the next sessions and Payne -eceived twelve months bard labour.