10 YEARS’ PERSECUTION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 7

10 YEARS’ PERSECUTION

WOMAN CALLED ON PHONE The story ot a woman’s persecution by telephone tor 10 years was revealed in London recently. The woman is Mrs. Maud Smellie, of Queen’s Gardens, Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park, W. “When I came to live in London,” she said, “the persecution began almost at once. A man with a cultured voice telephoned and asked me not to forget an appointment which I had never made. “Pe persisted that I had promised to meet him for a little dinner at a West End hotel. I did not meet him, and he kept telephoning to me. He said he was Lord Mrs. Smellie stated that later the man began his conversations by saying, “Are you Smellie?” and making offensive puns on her name. He sometimes used obscene language. She continued: “This sort of thing has gone on at intervals for ten years, and I despair of discovering who is persecuting me. “There seem to be one or more men *fend a woman and a girl who sometimes interrupt. I hear them laughing. “The persecution is affecting my health, because I am often awakened in the early hours of the morning. I have sometimes had to resort to plugging my telephone. “Last winter I went to Florida for several months. Within two days of returning to London, while I was staying at an hotel in Orchard Street, off Oxford Street, I received offensive telephone calls apparently from the same people. “When I moved to my present address my persecutors were ou the telephone to me within a week.” Mrs. Smellie has appealed to Scotland Yard and to the Post Office. She states that officials have told her nothing can be done to stop the nuisance.

One night last week-end she was disturbed by her persecutors three times within five minutes. Most of the calls are at night. There have been as many as five or six in an hour.