WOMAN “BEYOND HOPE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22903, 10 June 1936, Page 16

WOMAN “BEYOND HOPE”

“ Beyond hope ” was the description applied by the judge at the Old Bailey, London, recently to a woman whom he sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Adding that she had “ arrived at a stage of efficiency in crime,” the judge also ordered her to receive five years’ preventive detention.

The woman, Hilda Harris, aged 50, a domestic servant, charged as an habitual criminal, pleaded guilty to three eases of theft from furnished flats, and she asked that 36 other offences should be taken into consideration. She pleaded for leniency, urging that she had never had a chance since her first conviction at 18. Inspector M’Dougall told the court that the value of the stolen property was £909, of which £285 had been recovered. The woman’s real name, he added, was Lily Chamberlain, and she was born at Wimbledon of respectable parents. She married at 22, left her husband within a month, and then started on a life of crime. Her method became more skilled each time, and she avoided arrest for more than two years, although a number of police officers were detailed to try to trace her. She usually lived at small hotels and boarding houses, where she posed as a retired lady’s companion, and she created confidence among the people she met.