ARSENIC AND APPLES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume IV, Issue 223, 1 September 1936, Page 6

ARSENIC AND APPLES

Chef Sentenced To Eighteen Months' Gaol. i ENDANGERING,LIVES. Frank Thornton Edwards. 23, a hotel chef, was sentenced recently by Mr. Sandlands, Recorder of Leicester, to 18 months' imprisonment. He was accused of having put arsenic into blackberry and apple pies, says the Daily Telegraph. Mr. D. L. Finnemore, prosecuting, said that the day after Edwards received a week's notice from the Elmfield Hotel, Leicester, he made a fruit pie for lunch at the hotel and at another, the Stoncycroft, owned by the same proprietor, Mr. Cedric Bone. Mr. Bone lunched at the Stoneycroft Hotel, and later, while at a cinema, was taken sick. His wife also became sick with a bad headache and rapid pulse. Miss Kathleen Robbins, cook at the Stonaycroft Hotel, and the kitchenmaid, Miss .Phyllis Smith, who had eaten some of the pie, also became sick and dizzy. , Nurse Marlow, attending a patient at the Stoneycroft Hotel, felt very ill. Altogether five employees and nine guests, besides Mr. ancJ Mrs. Bone, were affected. Four or rive people in the hotels who did not have pie suffered no ill-effects.

Analysed. An analysis showed, said Mr. Finnemore, that the arsenic averaged nine and a half grains per pound of the fruit. Interviewed by Detective-Superinten-dent Ashburner, Edwards made a long statement. In the first part he said that he knew nothing about it, but in the second part he admitted that he put weed-killer into the blackberries. Mr. J. P. Stimson, defending, pointed out that none of the persons affected had ever been in danger of their lives. He suggested that Edwards had a grievance against fate and did a foolish act on.the spur of the moment. Dr. A. N. Colahan, a Leicester nerve specialist, said that Edwards, though not certifiable, was far from normal. "He would not know how wrong it was," added the doctor. Passing sentence, the recorder saiJ ithat he accepted the submission that 1 Edwards had no intention of endangering anyone's life. "If you did not know that what you were doing was likely to cause very serious harm," said the recorder to Edwards, "I think the state of your mind is such that the term I am sending you to prison for may prevent you endangering other people's lives."