"MADLY IN LOVE"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23115, 13 August 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

"MADLY IN LOVE"

Infatuated Nurse ;3l with Fiance Who

REMARKABLE pleas on each Other's behalf were made by a former convict and a State-registered nurse whose association in crime led to sentences at the Old Bailey, London. The woman, who has just started 12 months' imprisonment, is 23-year-old Margaret Kirkpatrick, a London hospital nurse from Dumfries, who protested to the Court: " I was in no way incited by my fiance in this crime. I do not see why he should be blamed for my share in it."

THE man, Frederick George Offord, 36-year-old artist, familiar with prison life from the inside, has gone back for a further term of three years' penal servitude. Before he went he told the Recorder, Mr. Gerald Dodson, that Nurse Kirkpatrick "picked him up from the gutter," gave up everything for him, and gave him "that reform which comes from within." Kirkpatrick lmtl entered a "guilty" plea to £IOOO thefts from houses where sho had been employed, and Offord admitted receiving property. Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who was in court when her daughter was sentenced, stated afterwards that Margaret's first and only lovo affair had been with Offord. "When Margaret met this man she became infatuated," declared the mother. "Sho had never shown any interest in men, and he swept her off her feet, as he had done other women before. My daughter loves him madly, and I can only hope she will learn to forget him." "Gave Up Everything" Kirkpatrick, wearing a brown, furtrimmed coat and brown hat, declined to tell the Court anything in her own defence. "I was entirely responsible for my own actions," she declared. "I found Offord was always kind and courteous. I have nothing to say in my own defence."

Bailey judge observed it was clear thai Offord had made up his mind to be enemy of the community, and to p,2 upon society. He had preyed on dm? SbiT& womcn ' and led . Offord's last conviction, at Hiclw. in 1937, earned him six months' HaH labour for stealing £1 by a trick. Girl's Exemplary Character The police had no doubt that Offord was entirely responsible for Kirk Patrick's part in the present offences* Detective-Sergeant A. Webb told th# .Recorder her character had been exem plary. She had won a scholarship at school, and from 1933 to 1938 wavem, ployed at a hospital in West London* She was a fully trained, State-registered nurse. The charges to which Kirkpatrick pleaded guilty were:—Stealing and receiving a ring valued at £IOO and £23 in cash belonging to Laura Scott, by whom she was employed; stealing and receiving property belonging to Dr Krnest Jionney; stealing and receiving property worth £6BO belonging to Haiu Weisenberg; and stealing and receiving property worth £l2O belonging ta Percy Holmes. Offord pleaded guilty to receiving the property belonging to Mr. Weisenberg and taking away a motor-car without the owner's consent. The Court was told that the couple posed as man and wife, obtained situations as cook-general and chauffeur, and vanished with money and valuables. On one occasion* they were engaged as houseman and cook by Dr, Bonnev. After they had left it was found tb»t phials of cocaine and morphine missing.

It; was after he had been sentenced that Offord made his dramatic plea on his companion's behalf. "When I came out last I was a broken man. 1 came to her very ill, and she gave up everything for me. She picked me up from the gutter when everyone left me and I was absolutely helpless. She gave up her career and profession for me," he declared. "She has done more for me than judges or anyone else. She has given me that reform which comes from within. She has made a sacrifice, and I do ask you to take a lenient attitude toward her. Effort to go Straight "Although 1 have been bad, even when I first came to her, I told her everything about my career, and she still loved me. She still loves ine, and has promised to see me on the" straight way. "This is positively my last appearance. I will go away and get clean, and will see if I can reform and make an effort to go straight." Offord asked that he might bo allowed to sec Kirkpatrick before he began his sentence, and the Recorder stated that subject to police arrangements, he would not object. Offord has been twice married and twice divorced—in 19130 and recently. His convictions date back to 1918, when he was bound over for assaulting his mother, and sentenced to thre<? years' Borstal detention for robbing her of a purse and watch. Worthless Cheques Ho was back at Borstal again in 1922 through being concerned with others in stealing from a dwellinghouse. Theft of a cheque-book from n widow, and use of the cheques to obtain goods and money brought 12 months' imprisonment at Southampton in 1924, and in 1926 Offord was sentenced at Paignton for theft while a servant. He received a concurrent sentence of six months for bigamy. When Offord was given a term of live years' penal servitude for larceny and forging and uttering a Post Office Savings Bank book in 1930, the Old