BLACKMAILER GAOLED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20097, 2 May 1935, Page 2

BLACKMAILER GAOLED

PLEA OF INSPIRATION FAILS Sentence of three years’ penal servitude was passed at Derbyshire Assizes upon a blackmailer who, it was said, acted on impulse after reading an article in a woman’s magazine. He was Charles Francis Wetton, aged 26, joiner, of Codnor, who pleaded guilty of sending a menacing letter to his former employer, James Bullock, builder and cor- actor, of Heanor. It was explained that Wetton wrote to Mr Bullock making complaints about houses he was building, and threatening to write to the papers if £SO in £1 notes was not sent in a brown paper parcel to an address in Richmond, Surrey. The letter went on:—“Do not register it or insure it in any way, or mention it to a soul, or I shall shoot your wife in cold blood on Christmas Eve.” It was signed “Never Seen By You.” When arrested, Wetton declared he acted on a sudden impulse after reading a magazine article headed “The Poisoned Pen,” and he thought it an easy way 6f getting £SO. Mr Elwes, defending, described the letter as childish, and stated everyone who knew Wetton was astonished he should have done such a thing. Counsel said Wetton was married, and had one child, and there was reason to believe he was not of strong mind. His grandfather died in an asylum, and he himself sustained concussiory in a cycling accident. Mr Justice Humphreys, passing sentence, told Wetton, “As a warning to others, you must be dealt with for this abominable crime.”