"GOLD DIGGER" CHARGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19131, 28 September 1936, Page 12

"GOLD DIGGER" CHARGE

ALLEGED LIBEL ON GIRL

'POSTCARD STATEMENTS

LONDON; July 30

A letter sent to a girl, ami containing thi' phrase, -Yon are a gold digger and a dirty rotter,'*' was read yesterday before, the Canterbury Bench. "'Elijah Marsh, of Ivy lane, Canterbury, a night telephone operator, was committed for trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of publishing a defamatory libel in regard to a 26-year-old girl, who was referred to as Miss "X."

Mr.. A. IC. MoWll, prosecuting, said that the girl was a clerk employed at a post office. She became acquainted with Marsh bv reason of heaving him over the telephone. They met occasionally, and Once Marsh asked her if she loved him. She replied that she did not.

On .luly 10, Marsh sent Miss "X" a letter which contained the following:— •'Many thanks for making a fool of me for the last six months, but 1 am not the only one you have made a fool of.

''You have no need to tell lies to save vour vellow skin. You know it was serious, 'it is onlv since has been home you have been rotten. 1 could take you out and vou enjoy yourself at my expense. It shows you are a gold digger and a dirty rotter." - ''l have enclosed a cutting from a newspaper. The same is coming to yon one of these hue days, if 1 get tive years for it. i"ou would look a fool then." Mr. Mowll said that the cutting related to a case in which a man was sentfor three years' penal servitude on charges of iuriieting grievous bodily harm and committing an offence against a gill. "TO SHOW HER UP ~ Marsh was interviewed by a police inspector, who warned him that if he insisted Hi-Ids' attitude he might get into senotis trouble, lie replied:_ "That is wnat 1 want-to show her up." tm July 13 he sent the post card containing the libel, of which complaint was rnaoe. it read : •\\ly darling little honey bunch. Even if yiui arc the rottenist little gold digger I have ever met, I must thank you lor our lovely week-end. ... I have booked a nice room for this week-end at the cottage. ••Wnat train shall I meet, a quarter to nine or the 10.14'.' I am sure a repetition of our last week-end will be equally as thrilling. ' "Will send a card like this to home '■ in case you do not get this. Bye-byo, my darling gold digger. Sleep well, and think of our glorious week-end." Giving evidence, Miss. "X" denied that she' had ever spent a week-end with Marsh, and said that there was no truth whatever in what was written on the post card. Evidence was also called to show that it would have been impossible, by reason of times, for Miss "X" to have spent a week-end with Marsh.

Marsh was granted legal aid, but bail was refused.