Dramatic Release

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 608, 9 March 1929, Page 9

Dramatic Release

MASQUERADER SET FREE

Papers Buy Her Life Story (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Servicef Reed. 12.23 p.m. LONDON, Friday. THE masquerader Valerie Barker was released dramatically from gaol, having supplied information regarding her bankruptcy, thereby purging the contempt charge. Newspapers have bought for a large sum the story of her life.

Her release at Holloway was perhaps as dramatic as any individual adventure of her career. Attired in a brown tweed costume and black velour hat, she was smuggled through a small side door at the rear of the prison, which door is used by officials alone. First, she was led along a side moat to the back of the prison. A 6ft brick wall barred the way. Barker made light of the barrier. Pressing her foot in a niche in the brickwork, she vaulted into a garden. She was in the jolliest mood, laughing and joking, with a cigarette in her mouth.

In the meanwhile, the main gates of the prison were besieged by such a crowd, mostly of women, that the mounted police had to be summoned. The crowd continued to grow and waited for three or four hours. A decoy car swept from the prison with two wardresses, against whom another woman was huddled. The crowd, however, was not deluded. It burst into laughter and refused to move. When Barker made her exit by the secret doorway at the rear of the prison, she faced two resourceful photographers, who suspected the possibility of a ruse. She hurriedly hid her face with her hands and jumped

into a waiting car, which rounded the road in view of part of the great crowd.

She was leaning back smoking a cigarette. Her solicitor states that the next step will be a public examination in bankruptcy, the date of which has not been fixed. Barker was not long released before she was besieged by newspaper offers for her life story. It is understood this has been secured by a group of London newspapers for a big sum. Miss Alfreds Haward. the woman who went through the form of marriage with Mrs. Valerie Smith, who posed as a man, and called herself Captain Barker, says: “My ‘husband’ always seemed most masculine. Her sax was never challenged while we were together. I never suspected anything myself. “I had no serious quarrel with her until another woman came into our lives. I must say she was wonderfully cavalier, and was always full of those little attentions that mean so much to a woman. She liked the best food and wine, and was always very generous. She reminded me of the American advertisements of a perfectly-groomed man.”