LETTERS TO KING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18263, 5 December 1933, Page 6

LETTERS TO KING

ALLEGED BLACKMAIL ENGINEER’S DEMANDS AN UNSAVORY STORY ‘ ‘ ABSOLUTELY GROUNDLESS” (Elec. Tel. Copyright-— United Press Assn.) (Received December 5,2 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 4.

Clarence Haddon, consulting engineer, who was arrested last week on a charge of ‘‘uttering, knowing the contents thereof, a letter demanding money from the King with menaces and without reasonable or probable cause,” was remanded for a week, when lie will be committed for trial to the Old Bailey.

The prosecuting counsel said the only meaning of a large number of letters written to His Majesty was that unless money was paid, IPaddon would publish the fact that he was the Duke of Clarence’s illegitimate son. Haddon had never produced any witness or document which could lead one to suspect that his claim was anything but entirely groundless.

Counsel read a number of letters, the 'first dated March- 13, 1933. in which Haddon said he was writing “unknown to the people who are backing my case,’’ a phrase which counsel asked the court to bear in mind.

The letter proceeded: “All I ask is about £6OO a year private income, enough money to 'start a hoardinghouse.”' In other letters he said lie was going to sell all bis letters to the highest bidder. "I have been deprived of tin* right to live a, clean life owing to being an illegitimate son of Your Majesty’s brother. Now I will he a byword to the world, and so will the name of the Royal Family,” lie wrote. Haddon also threatened to display a poster on a sandwich board. WASHING DIRTY LINEN Another letter, referring to a dinner the Prince of Wales attended, said : “1 cannot be in the position of your sou, enjoying the fat of the land, whereas 1 am now in a back room, forced to wash my own and the Royal Family’s dirty linen in public for a living." He explained that be was sending copies of the letters to foreign rulers, and enclosed a copy of one sent to the President of tho United States. He added that lie should be enabled to settle comfortably in one of our colonies, instead of being forced to distribute pamphlets throughout Britain and collect signatures for a petition to the House of Commons or the League of Nations. He hoped that the Royal Family at last | would be content with their handiwork. Another letter said : “Suicide is one I alternative, but is impossible because of 1 principle. Another is to throw myself on the Royal Family’s mercy and seek the right to live the hist of my days as an honorable citizen.” j He also suggested that unless he was helped he would show the Royal Family .in true colors to the Economic Confcr- | once delegates, causing them to leave I England with a nasty taste in their i mouths. j Counsel submitted that the letters coni tallied demands with menaces, j Tho police gave evidence that they j found copies of posters at Haddon’s | home. Haddon’s general character prejviouslv had been good. Bail was refused.