BOGUS TALE TO POLICE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 February 1933, Page 12

BOGUS TALE TO POLICE

CRIME UNDER ENGLISH LAW.

WOMAN’S FALSE HOLD-UP STORY.

It is a criminal offence to waste the time of the police by telling them a bogus story of a robbery.

This is the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal consisting of the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Hewart) and Justices Avory and Branson.

The question arose on the appeal of Mrs. Elizabeth Manley, a Croydon widow, who was convicted at the Old Bailey on a charge of “effecting a public mischief.” The recorder (Sir Ernest Wild) postponed sentence pending the hearing of the appeal against conviction, and allowed Mrs. Manley bail. It was alleged that Mrs. Manley, after complaining to the police of being knocked down and robbed, admitted that the story was false. Mr. Laurence Vine, for Mrs. Manley, referred to the two counts in the indictment which, he pointed out, said that her statements had deprived the public of the services of police officers and rendered subjects of the King liable to suspicion.

“A few years ago,” he went on, “there was a hue and cry all over Surrey. Half the Surrey constabulary were taken from their regular duties to search for a woman novelist. So far as I know no proceedings were instituted against that woman and there was no suggestion of any common law misdemeanour.” Mr. Justice Avory: The fact that no charge was made against her does not show that if it had been made it would not have been successful.

Kir. L. A. Bryne, for the Crown, submitted that one should not lose sight of the fact that Mrs. Manley was desirous of putting forward her story as a means of explaining why she was short of money, which was due to a club of which she was an official.

The Lord Chief Justice, giving judgment, said that in the opinion of the Court the conviction was right. Was it true to-day to say that there was a misdemeanour of committing an act tending to public mischief? he asked. In the opinion of the Court that question had to be answered in the affirmative. The conviction must stand and the appeal be dismissed.