£4700 FOR EX-TYPIST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19128, 24 September 1936, Page 12

£4700 FOR EX-TYPIST

EMPLOYERS TO PAY ACCUSED OF FORGERY LONDON, July IS. A former typist, who, Mr. Justice Atkinson, declared, had been subjected to every indignity imaginable, was awarded, at Manchester Assizes yesterday, £4719 damages, including £"l9 special damages, against a father and son, her late employers. She was Mrs. Frances Irene liowiek, of Rhos-on-Sea. Charges of forging cheques and falsification of accounts, made against her at the Police Court, had befcn dismissed, and she sued Philip Lazarus and Adolph Lazarus, calieo printers, both of Salford, claiming damages for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. After she had left the firm's employment to be married, she was arrested and kept overnight in a cell, bail being refused. The defence was that before launching the prosecution all reasonable precautions were'taken. Auditors and solicitors were" consulted and counsel's advice taken, and the warrant for the girl's arrest was issued by the stipendiary magistrate. In his summing-up yesterday Mr. Justice Atkinson said that the issues raised were very important and very serious.; The mere fact that a person prosecuted was acquitted did not entitle that person to bring an action

against the person who set the criminal, proceedings in motion unless it could be shown that they were instituted without reasonable and proper cause and maliciously. The defendants stated, and were' still saying, that Mrs. Lowick had 1 swindled them out of £IOSO. "What," he asked, "were the! probabilities of a 'slip of a girl,' at the I ■time between the'ages of 19 and 20, getting past for IS months two astute Jews and their accountant to the tune of over £1000?" Commenting on the arrest of Mrs. Lowick, Mr. Justice Atkinson said that without, a single cheque having been put before her, ;die was taken to the police station and submitted to every indignity imaginable. ■She was examined, searched, her finger prints taken, and refused bail. She was taken to a police roll ■with a plank bed and only one blanket. Next. morning she was forcibly stripped and washed with carbolic soap. She was taken to the Police Court in a van between a prostitute and a disorderly person. "Did Philip and Adolph Lazarus honestly believe in the truth of the charges laid before the magistrates," asked the judge. "Did they take re r jonable care to inform themselves n'' the true-facts before proceeding; an! were the defendants or either of them actuated by malice?" Judgment was entered for the plaintiff against both defendants for £471!) The judge granted a stay of execution in respect of £4OOO only. He ordered that £71!) be paid immediately, and that £4OOO be paid into court within 10 days.