GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19231, 11 July 1932, Page 5

GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

VICAR OF STIFFKEY CONVICTED. CHANCELLOR'S SCATHING COMMENT. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON. July 8. The Rev. Harold F. Davidson was found guilty of immoral conduct in | respect of Rose Ellis and Barbara Harris, of improper suggestions to the waitress, Miss D., of kissing and cuddj ling Barbara Harris in a restaurant, of accosting and importuning other j waitresses, and molesting Phyllis Holt, Winifred Barker and Nellie Churchill. Davidson was first out of the Court, and when running from the curious crowds, said, “I expected the verdict from the first.” The Chancellor of the Court declared that he was satisfied that Davidson’s evidence was a tissue of reckless and deliberate falsehoods. “Davidson may be an excellent parish priest, but I think he went about with women with immoral intent.” Earlier evidence sti.ted that on a motor trip to Stiffkey there were Mr I and Mrs Osborne and Davidson and also a fourth member of the party, who was a New Zealand clergyman’s daughter, about 28 years of age, who came to London with a reputation as an actress. She was then playing the juvenile lead at the Regent Theatre. Davidson knew her father. She is now a Catholic nun. When he heard she was contemplating conversion, he lent her a book opposing the course, and J introduced her to the Bishop of NorI wich, hoping he would dissuade her. He denied placing his arm around her I waist in the car, or that there was i undue familiarity. He denied the I allegations concerning girls in tea i shops, and replying to the Chancellor’s I question, regarding introductions, 1 Davidson retorted: “If you are going | to make these girls outcasts, you will < never raise them. The Church’s great | failure is that its icebergs draw their ! skirts away from such girls.” In all. five charges were brought against Mr Davidson by the Bishop of Norwich under the Clergy Discipline Act as follows: —The defendant has hern guilty of immoral conduct from ' September, 1921, until November, 1931. j with a woman named. The defendant in j x* about the month of August, 1929, was , guilty of immoral conduct in that he annoyed and made improper suggestions to a waitress at a cafe at Wal-b-ook, London. The defendant was on November 12, 1931. guil f y of an immoral act in that he embraced a young j woman in a public room at a Chinese restaurant at Bloomsbury. The defendant has during the last five years been guilty of immoral conduct in that he has habitually associated himself with women of a loose character for immoral purposes. The defendant has been guilty of the immoral habit of accosting, molesting and importuning young females for immoral purposes. At the hearing in April, Barbara Harris, when counsel suggested that the rector's association with her was due to the desire to take her from undesirable surroundings, denied it, | though she admitted that he once helped her to get employment. She once gave the rector a black eye, because he locked her in a room and would not let her out. She added that Davidson always told her she looked like Greta Garbo. Dorothy Burn, a pretty fair-haired waitress, age’ 21, said in evidence: “Davidson followed me about the shop, took hold of my hand, and told me I was fovely and ought not to be working at that because I was too good for the job. He came in every day for a good while after that. He followed me everywhere I went. Even if I went to the counter he followed me.” Th Chancellor of the Court, Mr F. K. North, said that he had received a number of anonymous letters protesting against the press publishing details of the inquiry, and urging that it should be held in camera. “I have no power to do that,” he said, “and if I had I would not. I believe in publicity Serious as the mischief may be of publishing nasty details, it is not nearly so serious as the mischief cf secret trials might be. As long as I have any discretion whatever I shall do what I have to do in public. If things are supposed to be wrrtng careful inquiry should be made, and it is right that people should know how careful it is.”