SENT 200 TO GALLOWS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 12

SENT 200 TO GALLOWS

ENGLISH PROSECUTOR’S REMINISCENCES BODIES BURNED IN OVENS An Englishman, who has been responsible for sending 200 murderers to the gallows, is Mr. F. J. Sims, who from ISSO until 1921 conducted most of the Crown cases. “When Eddie Guerin escaped from Devil’s Island,” said Mr. Sims to a “Daily Mail” reporter, “Chicago May hired an American gunman to kill him on his return from England. The gunman caught Guerin outside a tube station, and wounded him twite, but only in the foot. The gunman got 14 years’ penal servitude. “A curious series of murders was committed separately by four London bakers. The first threw his master’s body into an oven, where it was destroyed. Nothing was found except the victim’s trouser buttons and the buckles of his braces. “A man named Garry also incinerated his victim’s body in an oven. He then spent the dead man’s wages and his own in a public house. Suspicion fell on him, and he was arrested and convicted. Gang’s Dynamite Factory "Another man, named Hawkins, who was sentenced to penal servitude, was suspected of murdering his master. He disappeared, but was caught. "My first big case was the prosecution of a number of people from Macclesfield, Boscombe, and Deal for bribery in the elections of 1883. The Deal cases were taken at Maidstone and we had so many witnesses that we loaded a special train with them. "One of my next big cases was the prosecution in 1883 of the Gallagher gang. the first of the Clan-na-Gael conspiracies to come into court. “The gang had a dynamite factory in Ledsam Street, Birmingham, and they were arrested in London by ChiefInspector Littlechild. One was acquitted; five got penal servitude for life. "A similar case was one in which a man named Ivory and others sought to jblow up the Manchester ship Canal, ivory fell into the hands of the police after making arrangements for the purchase of dynamite, and the other two were caught also, but the judge held that there was not sufficient evidence to convict them' and they were liberated. "One of them was arrested afterwards on the Continent. His name was Curney. He escaped, and in New York was closely associated with the Clan-na-Gael. "All the time he was in receipt of a retainer from Scotland Yard, which led someone to remark that there was never a conspiracy of three Irishmen in which two of them at least were not betraying the third. Tracing French Murderers How two French murderers were traced by Scotland Yard was described by Mr. Sims. "They arrived in London,” he said, "with a number of bonds. One of their victims was an old man, who had -been living on his bonds. ’ They could no* speak English, and they frequented a public-house in Soho where the licensee spoke French. They tried to dispose of the bonds, and the man became suspicious and gave information. "The late Inspector Mclntyre, who spoke French fluently, arrested the men after they had tried to sell him some of the bonds at ridiculous prices. "They were charged here with being in possession of property stolen abroad. They were afterwards convicted in France of two murders and guillotined.” Mr. Sims recalled that when he first went to the Treasury they were burning wax candles and the charwomen had to show the stumps of old ones before they could obtain new ones. "Cabinet Ministers were entitled to take their office furniture away with them when they vacated their posts,” he said. "The new man was always given new furniture. I believe there was eventually some scandal about furniture being ordered in excess of requirements.”