THE PENNY CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22836, 21 March 1936, Page 8

THE PENNY CASE

LACK OF CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE ——*— .\ INVESTIGATION BY MINISTERS j— — (Pku United Press Association) WELLINGTON, March; 20. A joint official statement dealing with the Penny case was issued to-d&y by the Minister of Defence, Mr F. Jones, and the,Minister in Charge of the Police, Mr P. Fraser, under whose notice the matter was officially first< brought in January last. The statement reads:— After preliminary inquiries, which revealed the fact that reports appeared in both £he daily and the weekly press in June: of last year in connection with Penny and his alleged discovery and subsequently his alleged assault, the Ministers decided to investigate the matter. They accordingly perused the relevant files, and, accompanied by Mr J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-Secre-tary, visited Penny personally and interviewed him at Fort Dorset. The Ministerial investigation showed, that the attention of the defence and police authorities had been directed in June of last year to certain experiments alleged to have been made by Penny, and to the results claimed for > them. Early in July, after a consultation between representatives of these departments; and with the knowledge of the Minister concerned, it.was decided that it would be unwise to ignore Penny's claims without proper investigation, and that in order to give him an opportunity of developing and demonstrating what he claimed to be able to produce he should be, brought to Wellington and placed under the protection of the defence authorities. This was done, on Somes Island and then at Fort Dorset. The investigation undertaken by the Minister of Defence, the Minister in Charge of the Police Department and the Parliamentary Under-secretary involved an examination of the files concerned, a visit to Penny at Fort Dorset, and a report furnished by competent scientific authorities upon the alleged discoveries of Penny and upon his methods of approach to scientific problems. A report was presented to Cabinet in February to the effect that, as far as was ascertainable, there was a' complete lack of corroborative evidence as to the authenticity of the alleged discoveries and the claims made for them, and that there had been no sound or adequate grounds for the action taken in respect to Penny. On receiving this.. report, Cabinet decided that Penny's services under the existing conditions; of. employment should be terminated as from the end of February. «-"v : --,

After Mr Penny's removal fr°m the Auckland Hospital to Somes" Island last year, the suggestion was put forward in some quarters that he had discovered a mysterious "death ray," or at least some entirely new development in the field of radio. It was even stated that some foreign power was interested in his discoveries or inventions. It is admitted that during Mr Penny's stay on Somes Island, certain highly technical books on radio and allied subjects were forwarded to him through the Police Department.