RUSSIAN LAW-BREAKER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23717, 26 January 1939, Page 13

RUSSIAN LAW-BREAKER

ENGLISHMAN’S FLIGHT SEARCHING FOR HIS WIFE SEPARATED FOUR YEARS (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Jan. 2. The remarkable story of a young Englishman who, separated from his Russian wife for four years and refused admission to enter the Soviet to rejoin her, flew into the country from Sweden in an old machine after only seven weeks’ tuition, has aroused the greatest interest. In Moscow he was fined £ 150 or a month’s imprisonment in default, and banished from the country for five years. The Englishman, Mr Brian Grover, 37-year-old son of Major and Mrs W. M. Grover, of Jordans, Bucks, married Ilena Golius, descendant of an aristocratic family of Russia, when he worked in the Soviet Union years ago. When he was transferred abroad the Soviet Government would not let her leave. The years passed. Occasionally, in his flat in Sloane square, Chelsea, Mr Grover received a letter from his wife. One day last autumn she wrote that she had no food and no money. He threw up his job, learned to fly at Heston, bought a £2OO light airplane, and with a pilot friend flew in November to Sweden. Next day he gave his friend the slip and flew off alone, though still a novice pilot. PLEA OF GUILTY Mr Grover pleaded guilty to the mild charge of illegally flying across the Soviet frontier “without coun-ter-revolutionary or treacherous intention,” said the Moscow correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. He declared that “ out of despair ” he had deliberately broken Soviet laws, because he wished to rejoin his Soviet wife, Ilena Golius, call the attention of the Central Soviet authorities to their case, and, ff possible, get her out of he country. He had, he said, been trying to get his wife out or to go to Moscow to join her ever since he left Russia in 1934. A FINAL PLEA Towering above the five Ogpu guards, Mr Grover made a good impression in court. He was obviously under great emotional and nervous strain, but he answered the questions of the youthful presiding judge, a “young Communist,” in a quiet, straightforward way, in halting Russian. He was occasionally helped out by one of the worst interpreters imaginable. The judge, by his questions, allowed Mr Grover to tell his story fully and convincingly. He was still dressed in his flying clothes. In a final plea before the judges retired to draft their verdict, Mr Grover appealed to the Soviet Government to be allowed to live with his wife either in Russia or abroad. According to the official indictment, Mr Grover, while under investigation in solitary confinement, had gone so far as to declare his readiness to take Soviet citizenship if that was the only way left to him for reunion with his wife; but he made no such request in open, court, ALL HOPE LOST A moving story of courage and fidelity was revealed to the court. Having lost all hope and patience after repeated applications for a visa to go to Moscow or for a Soviet exit visa for his wife, so that she could join him in England, Mr Grover took seven weeks’ flying lessons at Heston, bought an ancient 70 h.p. Klemm sports plane, now confiscated by the court, and engaged a professional pilot to fly him to Stockholm. At 8.30 a.m. on November 13 at Stockholm, he took off alone on his

first real flight in the worst possible Baltic weather, flying blind for six hours. He then made a luckv landing in a field about 100 miles from Moscow and 650 miles from his starting point. He got the local peasants to guide him to the nearest police station, where he asked to be sent on to the capital. He was taken into custody, as he had no Soviet visa or flying permit. After questions had been asked in the House of Commons about Mr Grqver the Embassy in Moscow received instructions from the Foreign Office to follow the case carefully. Although according to Soviet practice Mr Grover was held in solitary confinement after his arrest, the Embassy obtained permission for Mr Maclean, one of the secretaries, to see him at, the Lubianka prison* the Ogpu headquarters, last week. The Embassy has for a long time been trying to obtain an exit visa for Mrs Grover. The British Charge d’Affaires, Mr Gordon Vereker, together with the secretaries, Mr Dew and Mr Maclean, were present in court. COURT ASTONISHED

The sentence was, by Soviet standards, extremely mild. Russians caught attempting to cross the frontier, for whatever motive, risk being shot. It is hoped that the authorities will allow Mrs Grover to join her husband in England either now or at a later date. It is not known whether Mr Grover has appealed against the sentence. The court was obviously astonished and puzzled at Grover’s modesty about the way he had defied not only Soviet laws but the elements. “How could you,” the presiding judge asked, “a mere pupil with only seven weeks’ training, risk flying blind that great distance? " Mr Grover answered: “Well, it was not really flying blind, because I could, see the sun above the clouds. I flew as high as I could, at about 10.000 feet. I knew my plane was not good enough to take jme all the wav to Moscow. I flew as far as I could, and when the sun began to set 1 came down through the clouds and landed.” “IN GREAT DESPAIR,” Asked why he had come here, Mr Grover said, “I decided to come and ask the Soviet Government as an act of charity to allow my wife and me to live together.” Asked whether his crime was premeditated. he replied. “Obviously, it was.” When asked whether he had realised that a criminal charge might be brought against him, he answered in English. “ I was in such great despair that I decided to take the risk.” He added that the Soviet Consulate in London had tolloj, him that all cases like his were decided in Moscow. Mr,Grover said he married Ilena Golius under Soviet law in 1933 after knowing her for 18 months. On leaving Russia in 1934 he had written to her about once a week, and regularly sent her small sums of money, from £6 to £7. She had answered his letters regularly.