SURPRISE FOR WIFE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

SURPRISE FOR WIFE

f HUSBAND'S RECORD "A CLEVER CRIMINAL" .lARRIED ONLY ONE YEAR Bowing her head as she sat in the 'Assize Court at Dorchester, a young - wife heard for the first time the crim- ; f inal past of her husband. They had been married a year. The man, Edgar Audley Wattam, • thirty-three, farmer, who escaped from a police escort a month before by jumping out of a train as he was being taken to Weymouth, was sentenced to - three years' penal servitude for break- - ing into a post office and stealing £ISBO in postal orders, stamps, and cash. :: Wattam was found hiding in a hav- : stack at Druce, Dorset, 11 hours after his train leap. The prosecution's case was that on the night of the robbery, May 4-o, Wattam occupied a room at an hotel close to the post office, and left with—- • out having breakfast. He was said to have agreed to rent a pig farm at Winterbourne Stickland, near HI and ford. When the police entered a bungalow on the farm they found 90 postal orders hidden with other articles under the matchwood of the coiling. Started. Crime at Ten Mr. J. D. Casswcll, K.C., defending, pointed out that Wattam had a bad ■record, but after his last turn in a Borstal institution, two years ago, decided to go straight, lie married in February, 19!)/. worked for commission agents at stadiums near London,.saved ; money, and finally decided to settle down as a farmer. Sometimes it was difficult for a man -'to lose his old associates, who might .use him for their own purposes, con--tinued counsel, who said to the jury: "1 am going to ask you to say that

another man mimed -Morris committed r the crime. I hope you will come to the conclusion this is a clear case of 'plant- * ing' by Morris, taking advantage of his friendship with-my client." Morris, Mr. Casswell suggested, knew certain things about Wattam , that Wattam's wife did not know. In the witness-box Wattam admitted . that his criminal record started at the age of ten, hut he denied all knowledge of the robbery. Mr. Scott Henderson, prosecuting: After you were arrested, you were r- bravo enough to jump from tho train?

Wattam: it was not a question of /.bravery; it was a question of panic. V" Detective-sergeant Knight ' stated i that Wattam nad a number of contiyictions, and was regarded aa a darling and clever thief. • •