HATRY’S EARLY RELEASE

Southland Times, Issue 23648, 25 October 1938, Page 2

HATRY’S EARLY RELEASE

Son’s Great Efforts For Remission

PRISONER IN NEED OF LONG HOLIDAY

LONDON, September 29. The decision to release Clarence Hatry, the financier, from prison 18 months before his time is up (he was sentenced to 14 years f°£ 0 c ompany frauds involving deficits of £13,000,000), was largely due to the persistent efforts of his 24-year-old son Cecil. For more than six years Cecil Hatry has, week after week, been to the House of Commons interviewing members in an effort to get his father’s sentence reduced. Cecil Hatry was a school boy when his father passed to prison from the luxuries of Mayfair. From that moment he set himself the task of getting the assistance of as many members of Parliament as possible. Eventually these members formed a committee to dear with the matter. One of them, said this week: “Never once did the son attempt to deny his father’s guilt It was the degree of guilt which he questioned. The sight of this youth, growing to manhood while he spent his days pleading for his father, touched the sympathy of many members of the House. An appealing letter was sent to the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, by Mrs Hatry, in collaboration with her son. The family’s efforts—the fact that Hatry had given every help in clearing up financial difficulties in his case and his model behaviour during his eight years in prison—influenced the Home Office in remitting his sentence. No one, perhaps not even Hatry, knows what he will do when he. leaves prison, for news of his remission of sentence came as a complete surprise to his family and friends and legal advisers. It has been said he will devote his energy to organizing big-scale emigration to the Dominions and colonies, a pet ambition of his. Those who know him most intimately believe his return to the City, if only as a financial adviser, will not be long delayed. • , ■ Even while he has been in prison he has kept in touch with Stock Exchange movements, has successfully advised his wife on the investment of her own income, which may be his mainstay on his rdcase* But Hatry is a very sick man; he is suffering from phlebitis. First he will need a long holiday and careful treatment; he will probably go to /France for this. A friend of Hairy’s declared this week: “All these stories of hidden wealth to which Hatry will have access are wrong. When he comes out he will be practically penniless, but he told me he intended to start all over again, and one of the first things he hopes to do is to repay those who lost in his companies.”