CLOUD OF SUSPICION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16865, 31 January 1929, Page 7

CLOUD OF SUSPICION

LONDON POLICE SCA tutn. FATE OF GODDARD’S HOARD (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) LONDON. Jan. 30. No decision has been reached as to the legal ownership of ex-Sergeant Goddard’s hoard of £12,000 in bank notes siezed front the safe deposit. Goddard’s advisers are expected to institute proceedings for theoreturn of the money, less the fine and the costs, contending that the money, however acquired, is still Goddard’s. The decisiun in the ease has produced the most outspoken newspaper comment. The Daily Express states: “The case’ opened the authorities’ eyes to a police scandal which has been common knowledge for years. Everyone knowing anything of West End life was perfectly well aware that the proprietors of night clubs, gambling dens, and disorderly houses paid regular tribute to the police. Everyone accepted it as commonplace, except the higher police authorities." The Daily Elxpress states that Mrs. Meyrick, the “Night Club Queen,” at one time was interested in five clubs, her profits amounting easily to £IOOO a week.

The Daily Telegraph states: “It can hardly be doubted that the . recent dangerous cloud of suspicion in the public mind against, the metropolitan police is traceable, in no small degree, to the scandals which spread from the strange immunity enjoyed by some of the fashionable night clubs in London, the sentence passed by Mr. Justice A very mav well have been intended to have a sharply deterrent effect upon others.” " MRS. MEYRICK’S FORTUNES INCOME OF £IOOO A WEEK PENNILESS 10 YEARS AGO (United Se>wice.l (Received Jan. 31, 10 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 30. ’ The newspapers this morning give startling figures of Mrs. Kate Meyriek’s fortunes, amassed in ten years in association with night clubs. It is stated that she contributed to Goddard at least £IOO per week. In 1919 she was assisting her husband, an Irish doctor, to run a nursing liome in Ireland. She left him with eight .young children to rear on lfis a week, in a few years she was able to invest £27,000 from one club alone, She sent her sons to Harrow Public School, and her daughters to Roedean and Girton. Two married peers, the Earl of Kinnoull and Baron Dc Clifford. Her income in 1928 was estimated at over £IOOO a week. Her secret service was equal to Scotland Yard’s. She employed ex-detectives in the disguise of various street callings to give warnings of raids. She became overconfident, admitting strangers to the “Forty-three/’ Club, which led to her undoing.