TRIAL OF LORD E. MONTAGU

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22710, 24 October 1935, Page 14

TRIAL OF LORD E. MONTAGU

THEFT AND FORGERY CHARGE THE NAME OF MRS VAN DER ELST (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, September 28. On the third clay of an Old Bailey trial, Lord Edward Montagu (29), second sou of the Duke of Manchester, was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He was charged with the theft and forgery of a cheque for £l7 Os sd, drawn payable to Mrs Violet Van der Elst, a widow, of Addison road, to whom he had been secretary. He pleaded not guilty to all six counts, and was defended by Mr John Maude. References to "black magic and heated exchangee with counsel were features of the opening day. Mr J. F. Eastwood, prosecuting, said the six counts in the indictment referred to the one cheque for £l7 Os sd, which was drawn by a firm named Cope and Co. in favour' of Mrs Van der Elst. The charges against Lord Edward were that he stole the cheque, forged the endorsement on it in the name of Mrs Van dei Elst, and uttered the cheque. He did not get the whole of the cash at ouce, but on three different dates—July 16, 19, and 21—he got £5, £5, and £3 respectively, making £l3 in all. The balance was given to' him in credit at some club. Mrs Van der Elst was a wealth? Englishwoman with many different inter este. She helped people by giving them salaried employment. Lord Edward Montagu was employed in the capacity of secretary during June and July last. "Among his duties," added Mr Eastwood, "was to find out what bills were owing and to make out cheques which Mrs Van der Elst would sign. Occasionally she had a bet, and on June 28 a firm of bookmakers. DaiSid Cope and Co., sent her a cheque for £l7 Os sd. In due course it went to the bank of David Cope bearing what appeared to be hei endorsement and it was cashed. The case for the prosecution is that it was 6tolen by defendant, that he forged the endorsement and cashed the cheque. When Mrs Van der Elst got the cheque she put it in a drawer in her office where de fendant was employed. Early in July Lord Edward was taken ill and left her employment. After he had gone Mrs Van der Elst found the cheque had disappeared. The police made inquiries, and it was discovered that on July 16 the defendant had called to see Mr Kay Wakefield, a club proprietor." DECIDED TO CASH IT. Lord Edward produced a cheque and asked him if he could pay it into his account, saying he did not want all the money at once. Mr Wakefield agreed. They went to his bank, where the manager told him he should not cash a cheque for Lord Edward unless Mr Wakefield knew him very well. Mr Wakefield said he did know him very well, and Lord Edward produced a piece of paper bearing apparently another signature of Mrs Van der Elst. Mr Wakefield compared it with the endorsement on the cheque and decided to cash it. In getting Mr Wakefield to cash the cheque Lord Edward told him that Mrs Van der Elst had given him the cheque to pay for his services and pay some old accounts. The cheque went back to the bank of David Cope, Ltd., and was cashed. On August 3 the police saw Lord Edward Montagu at a West End hotel. When told he would be taken into custody Lord Edward said, " I did not steal it; she gave it to me." A police officer then said the endorsement was a forgery, and that the cheque had been uttered to Mr Wakefield at the Strollers' Club. Lord Edward then said: "She signed the cheque. She signed about five at the same time." Lord Edward was taken to the police station, and on the way he was shown the actual endorsement. He then said, " Mrs Van der Elst signed the endorsement. When I say signed it I mean scrawled it." At the police station Lord Edward said: "To tell you the truth, Mrs Vau der Elet gave me the cheque to pay some summonses. I have not paid them. I have converted the money. You can further charge me with that if you like." HANDWRITING EXPERT'S VIEW. To test whether or not Mrs Van der Elst might have given the _ cheque to Lord Edward and forgotten it —she was quite certain she did not —the endorsement was given to an expert in handwrit-

ing, who came to the conclusion that tha signature was riot hers. " One can hardly imagine," said Mr Eastwood, " that Mrs Van der Elst would get a carbon copy of her signature and ink it over. Whoever has done it .has apparently got a genuine signature of Mrs Van der Elst, has put this over some carbon paper on the back of the cheque, and has gone over the genuine signature, perhaps in pencil or with some sharp instrument. After this had been done the case for the prosecution is that whoever it was got a pen and laboriously traced over the carbon marks which appear on the back of the cheque." Mrs Van der Elst, giving evidence, wa* asked how Lord Edward ceased to be employed by her. "He suddenly didn't arrive," she replied. "I was surprised he did not turn up." She missed some money as well as the cheque and reported the matter to the police. The endorsement on the cheque was not hers as she never endorsed cheques. She had no need to. Mr Eastwood: Would it be possible tor you to have endorsed five other cheques at the same time?—No, it would not. Did you authorise Lord Edward to cash that cheque for you?—l did not. Mr Gerald F. Gurrin, handwriting expert, said he had come to the conclusion that the signature on the alleged forged cheque could not be the natural signature of anybody. It was a built-up. slowly executed signature so far as the strokes were concerned, and they were applied over a carbon copy. He concluded that it had been traced from a genuine one. Mr John Maude (defending): You say the signature on the back was not Mis Van der Elst's genuine signature. It is obviously not Mrs Van der Elst's ordinary signature?—That is what I mean. Witness added that he could not tell wno actually wrote on the back of the cheque. Detective Sergeant Sullivan gave evidence of the arrest of Lord Edward. POST AS SECRETARY. Lord Edward Montagu, in the witness box, said he had never been charged with any offence in his life involving dishonesty, but some years ago he was fine,! £lO in Canada for assault. In March or April last he went to Mrs Van der Lists house with a Mr Evans on some financial business that did not materialise. They left at about 4.30 in the morning. Mrs Van der Elst suggested that he should see her again, and he did so. She then suggested he should speak for her in her campaign for the abolition of capital punishment. She spoke a great deal of her aims and objects, and mentioned that she wanted to go into Parliament. " She suggested," Lord Edward continued, "that 1 should be a speaker for her and start with £5 a week, working up to £lO, I did not want to do it. I was hard up, and towards the end of June I went to her again, and it was suggested that I should be her secretary to tidy up her place." There was a tremendous amount of valuable stuff in the house. On one occasion he saw a whole lot of £5 and £lO notes in an envelope. He stayed with Mrs Van der Elst about three weeks. His work included going through bills and checking them up with receipts. He also had to tear up begging letters which he did not think worth answering. MRS VAN DER ELST'S PART. Addressing the jury on behalf of the prosecution, Mr Eastwood said it had been put against Mi's Van der Elst that it was a private prosecution. He had no doubt that the judge would tell them there was no such thing as a private prosecution by one person against another. All prosecutions were prosecutions by the Crown. Whjen the case started it began with the police. Mrs Van der Elst was not represented at the Police Court. She was anxious not to go on with the ease when she found that it was Lord Edward Montagu, and it was only when the outrageous suggestion was made that she had been forced to resign from her club —an untrue suggestion, made for the purpose of flinging mud —that she went straight to her solicitor's and, as a result, someone was there to protect her as far as possible. That was how Mrs Van der Elst came in as complainant, and was paying a part, at any rate, of the expenses of the prosecution. AN ADMITTED FORGERY. Mr Eastwood said that the only dispute between the prosecution and the. defence was that the defence said that Mrs Van der Elst gave the cheque to Lord Edward in order to pay some summonses which he admittedly said that he did not pay, and Mrs Van der Elst said that such a thing was unthinkable. The endorsement was an admitted forgery. "THROWING MUD." It was obvious that Mr Maude (for the defence) had been instructed by someone to throw mud at Mrs Van der Elst.

"From the first moment that the farst untrue allegation was made that she naa to resign from her club," said Mr Eastwood, "the sole purpose of the defence in this case—and where Mr Maude got the instructions one does not know, whether from Lord Edward °r anybody else—has been to fling mud with both hands at Mrs Van der Elst. She may be the wickedest woman in the country, she may be an angel, it makes very little difference in this case. The real thing is that when Lord Edward used that cheque, did not he know perfectly well that it was a forged cheque, and did not he forge it himself?" added Mr Eastwood. To call it "black magic" because Mrs Van der Elst was trying, to get in touch with her dead husband was an unkind thing to say. She had said that the only "black made" that she knew was in the Old Testament. UNJUSTIFIED ATTACK. "My friend, dealing with that, said she is interested in it because apparently she has been searching the Old Testament to find cases of black magic,' he said. "It was unkind and cruel, and as unjustified as that attack on her at the Police Court, when it was suggested that she had been forced to resign from her club. "Then she was asked: 'Aren't you a gambler? Didn't you go to Le Touquet?' She has "been, as she said, to two private parties where gambling had taken place for charity, and if she has lost money presumably the charity had benefited. She went for seven or eight days to Le Touquet, and you remember the suggestion that anyone who goes for a holiday to Le Touquet or Monte Carlo probably coca into the rooms and wins or loses a certain amount of money. To suggest that she is a gambler because she nas been to two private parties and Le Touquet—it might as well be suggested that any of you are gamblers because you play a game of whist or bridge or lose 5s at a\ foreign casino." It had been done to suggest that part of the money represented by the cheque was owed to Lord Edward as remuneration for going round to try to get a house at which she could run gambling parties for her own personal profit. There was not a scrap of evidence that Mrs Van der Elst either authorised him to do that or. if it was done, that it was ever done on her behalf. Clearly no house agent in London would accept Lord Edward m a tenant without someone at the back of him. It might be that Lord Edward thought " Here is a chance, of picking up a little bit of money. I will say I have Mrs Van der Elst behind me. But there was no evidence that she was. "But with all the mud that has been thrown in this case can you think of one single bit where you can honestly and truthfully say that it has.stuck? In my submission not one particle has stuck. It is as unjustified as the first bit of mud that we know was unjustified—that foul, untrue accusation that Mrs Van der Elst was forced to resign from her club. Mrs Van der Elst leaves this court with her character, just as clean as it was when she came in " A DEFENCELESS THING. Judge Dodson, in passing sentence, said it was extremely painful to see a young man like Lord Edward Montagu in that position. He was not unmindful that an appeal had been made on his behalf by Mrs Van der Elst. "If 1 could overlook this offence, said the judfe, "nobody in the world would be more anxious to do it than I, but a signature to a document is a defenceless thing, and the law must protect it in the interests of individuals and the commercial integrity. While one can always make allowances for offences committed on the impulse of the moment, forgery requires premeditation and careful execution, and for that reason it cannot be regarded as the case of a man yielding to sudden temptation. You are young, and I dare say that life has been difficult for you, for many reasons, but I have a duty to perform towards the public, and the least sentence I can pass upon you is one of nine months' imprisonment. Lord Edward bowed to the judge and left the dock to go below. When the verdict was announced Mrs Van der Elst jumped up and shouted: "May I ask for leniency, please?" The Press Association was informed last night that Lord Edward Montagu's legal advisers are considering the question of an appeal.