MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5374, 6 September 1904, Page 3

MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

AN AMAZING CASE. (From Our SjJecial Correspondents LONDON, July 22. The criminal records of all civilised countries boar witness that it is no uncommon thing for men to make the acquaintance of the inside of gaols simply because they happen to bear a close resemblance to some evil-doer, but few men can honestly claim to have been twice convicted through mistaken identity. The case of Adolph Beck is worth noticing if only for the fact that ho has been twice wrongfully convicted merely on the strength of a strong facial resemblance o a particularly despicable member of a fraternity that is, unhappily, numerous in London. The story of Beck's znisfor.lines, told as briefly as possible, runs thus: — In December, 1890, he was standing at tho door of his lodgings when a woman came up and gave him into custody on the charge of stealing her watch. At: tho police station he was detained, as other women appeared and declared that he had stolen various things from them, and in tho end Beck was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. Throughout his time in gaol he never ceased to assert his innocence, but his protestations wore greeted with smiling incredulity, and to his horror Beck discovered during his incarceration that he was supposed to have already served a previous term for similar offences under the name of "John Smith." Upon coming out of prison, that wellknown publicist Mr G. R. Sims, who had known Beck before, espoused his cause, and a number of independent gentlemen were found who swore that they had known Beck in Peru when he was supposed to have been committing offences in England in 1877. Then cam© the irony of Beck's fate. He was. he believed, on the point of proving his innocence to all the world when, in April last, he was again convicted defrauding women, but so much did his protestations of complete innocence impress the judge that he forbore to pass sentence until further inquiry had been made. Beck was therefore sent to gaol and treated as a prisoner on remand. Meanwhile his friends made every effort to prove that his arrest and conviction were not justified, but their efforts were ill rewarded till last week. Then the climax came with dramatic suddenness when another man named Thomas was arrested for the same kind of frauds on women, which were alleged to have been practised by Beck. When Beck, the newly accused man, and eight others wore placed in a row for identification by the women who were bringing the charges, William Thomas was pointed out as the man who had robbed them, and as the outcome of further investigations Beck was released on Wednesday afternoon. I question whether a parallel to this amazing and distressing case of mistaken identity can bo found in the annals of crime.