KIDNAPPING PLANNED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 16

KIDNAPPING PLANNED

LORD NUFFIELD ENDANGERED REVELATION IN COURT LONDON, June 3. (Received June 4, at 0.20 a.m.) A further charge of inciting Arthur Geoffrey Ramsden to conspire with him to kidnap Lord Nuffield was preferred against John Bruce Thornton. The proceedings were purely formal, the prosecution obtaining an adjournment until June 8. While Lord Nuffield was working late at his private office at Oxford on May 25, a saloon car drove up and two men entered the office. The intruders are reported to have ordered Lord Nuffield to enter their car, Mr Kennerley Rumford, a friend of Lord Nuffield, who was in an adjoining room, on hearing voices, telephoned the police. A later cablegram stated that as a sequel to the incident at Oxford, John Bruce Thornton was charged before a special court at the police station with the possession of firearms with intent to endanger life. The police refused to divulge anything beyond the name of the accused. It was stated that the police stopped a car in the main street of Oxford and arrested Thornton, the only occupant, who had not entered the works, and who had not even seen Lord Nuffield. It was learnt that Lord Nuffield recently received a number of threatening letters.