GAOL FOR LIBEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 565, 18 January 1929, Page 11

GAOL FOR LIBEL

Woman Sends Shoals of Postcards

OFFICER PILLORIED

For publishing criminal libels against an Army officer, Mrs. Fannie Cowie, a widow, of The Terrace, East Leach, was sentenced at Gloucester Assizes to 12 months’ imprisonment. When she heard the sentence she collapsed and had to be carried from the Court.

Mr. W. G. Earengey, who prosecuted, said that a charge was brought against Cowie of publishing a criminal libel against Lieutenant John Henry Adams. She pleaded guilty and was hound over, one of the conditions being that she was not to publish any similai - libels in future. The libel consisted of a shoal of postcards which were sent to Lieutenant Adams’s regimental depot, and which passed through a number of hands before reaching him. A number of charges were made on the postcards, one concerning a woman. Others were that he had “got round” the Fairford magistrates and that he had taken funds belonging to the regimental sports club. Cowie continued to send libellous postcards after she was bound over. She was brought before Mr. Justice Hox'ridge, and then promised not to libel Lieutenant Adams again, and on that promise she was released. She, however, had broken her promise, and had sent further postcards to the depot with the effect that this matter had become he talk of the regiment. Cowie, in court, admitted sending postcards, but said that she was driven into doing so because she was unable to obtain justice. She had at first merely acknowledged by postcards payments made to her by Lieutenant Adams under an order.

The judge said the woman had certainly received every indulgence. The time for further indulgence had passed.