ENGLISH TRAITOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24630, 11 June 1941, Page 6

ENGLISH TRAITOR

SENTENCED TO DEATH FIRST SINCE WAR BEGAN LONDON, May 19. The first Englishman to be sentenced to death as a traitor since war began is George Johnson Armstrong, a 39-year-old engineer. He was driven away from the Old Bailey in a closelyguarded prison van after, a two-day trial behind locked and curtained doors. Mr Justice Lewis pronounced sentence after putting on the black cap. The sheriff's chaplain recited a> formal "Amen " as at the conclusion of a murder trial. A jury ".'of 10 men and two Women returned the verdict of guilty. The usual court officials saw the final scene, but the public and press were excluded. This is the fifth sentence of death passed under the Treachery Act of last year. The first on. Mrs Dorothy Pamela O'Grady, of Sandown, Isle of Wight, was reduced by the. Court of Criminal Appeal to one of 14 years' penal servitude for offences under the Official Secrets Act. Three spies who entered Britain to listen to careless talkers and to radio military secrets to Germany were hanged in December. During the last war, 19 men were sentenced to death as spies. One was a British citizen. A number of women spies also were sentenced to death, but the sentences were commuted.