JUDGE ON BLACKMAIL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21390, 18 July 1931, Page 8

JUDGE ON BLACKMAIL

“MOST TERRIBLE CRIME” How seriously the judges regard blackmailing was shown at Leeds Assizes recently in an address to the jury by Mr Justice Swift. Blackmail, he said, was one of the most terrible crimes known to the law. The victim was necessarily one who had done wrong, and the blackmailer was one who got to know that fact and traded upon it. “ The wise man,” said the judge, “ goes at once to the police, but the foolish man, the weak man, afraid of the evil that he has done becoming known, pays, and he thinks, poor wretch, he has finished with it all. He is quite wrong. There has never been a blackmailer yet who has got a first pa3 r ment but who has come back for more and more and still more, until he has made the life of his victim a misery, ruining his health, his peace and his purse, until the moment comes when the wretched man goes at last to the police.” Mr Justice Swift continued: "In these cases a good deal is said in denunciation of those who set traps. Provided that the trap is honestly worked, and made by police officers wdio can be believed, a trap is not only a useful thing in the discovery of crime, but in cases of blackmail it is an essential thing. “If you see traces of a rat running about your sitting room you set a trap. There is no other w r ay of catching it, and if the police officers have information that leads thorn to suppose that blackmail is going on, it is their duty to set traps bj that the blackmailer may be caught and punished. “It is a duty of juries,” the judge added. “ to stamp blackmailing out.”