BLIND EYE OF JUSTICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16573, 4 November 1921, Page 6

BLIND EYE OF JUSTICE.

WHEN THE INNOCENT SUFFER. Be sure your innocence Will find you 1 out! This revised proverb (says the “ Sunday Chronicle ”) has been de--1 monst-rated true over and over again in tho annals of British crime. In the end, British justice is always triumphant. It is open to proofs even after it has spoken. It does not seek as in some countries, to hush up the affair and cover its blunder. The case of Mrs Gooding., of Txttlehampton, is a classic. She is the central figure in a baffling mystery. What are the plain facts of this deeply moving story? Wo will set them r 'ut as they are admitted hw a cold‘official department. the Homo Offic©. In December last she was convicted at Lewes Assizes of publishing certain libellous post cards and letters. She was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment. In March last she wits again convicted of a similar offence. There seemed overwhelming evidence to prove her guilt. Tho libels were in the same handwriting as those which had formed tho subject of the prosecution in Decemb r. And there was a mass of other testimony to show that the jury were justified then iii regarding her as guilty. Mrs Gooding was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, and the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed the sentence. After Mrs Gooding had been in prison several weeks further libels in the same handwriting began to be published in Little hn nipt on. These were brought to the notice of the Home Office. As the result of information obtained by that department it was clearly demonstrated that Mrs Gooding could in no wav have been responsible for the authorship of tbe libellous communications for which she bad gone to prison. Her innocence having been established, she is. now free. This unfortunate woman cannot sue for th© wrong she has suffered. No action would lie against the Grown. Slii can demand no compensation, but may receive some. The case of Mrs Gooding lias several parallels in tho judicial history of this country. Most notable of all is the case of Adolf Beck. Even after the lapso of years British justice vindicated him. In 1877 a man calling himself John Smith was convicted at the Old Bailey for defrauding women of money and jewellery. He perpetrated these frauds under the name of Lord Willoughby. Smith was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude, and released on license in 1881. Complaints were made to the police by women that they had been defrauded in a similar manner by a man styling himself Lord Wilton, or Minton, and representing that he had an establishment at St- John’s Wood. Oitillie Meisimmer, a woman who had been defrauded, chanced in November, 1895, to meet Mr Adolf Beck, a Norwegian, in Victoria. Street, and charged him with having robbed her. Mr Beck, who denied the accusal on, was charged. Some of the women who had be°n victims affirmed that Mr Beck was the man who robbed them, and gave evidence to that effect before he Magistrate at Westminster Police Court. A "entleman who had been interested in tho original charge against Smith informed th© police that Mr Beck was doubtless tho ex-convict Smith* And, what is move, an ex-pol keman swore positively that Beck was Smith. His opinion was confirmed by another policeman who had been connected with the original case. In March, TB96—these dates are of vital importance—Mr Beck was tried at the Old Bailey and sentenced, to seven years’ penal servitude. Later*, while Beck was actually in prison Smith, th© ex-convict, was arrested on a charge of defrauding women. This led to further inquiries, with the result that Mr Beck’s innocence was established beyond the shadow of doubt. He received a “ free pardon,” with the offer of a £2OOO grant by the Treasury to compensate him for the wrong he hod suffered. Thus, after years, British justice triumphed again. The cases of Mrs Gooding and Adolf Beck, so alike in their essential features, are the classical instances of wrong being righted, but there are instances in the records where people have had amazingly narrow escapes of being falsely imprisoned. Some years ago Cornelius Howard, a butcher, was placed on trial for the murder of Mr George Harry Storrs, who lived at Gorse Hall, a mansion on tho borders of Cheshire and Lancashire. Howard was identified by several witnesses as the man who actually committed the crime. But it was proved that Howard was elsewhere at the time of the murder, and he was, of course, acquitted. This innocent man had a narrow squeak, and his acquittal only goes to swell the list of those who have cause to thank our fair administration of the law. Of course, th© Beck case, to which 1 have referred, was a powerful factor in the agitation which resulted in the establishment of the Court- of Criminal Appeal. But befor© it was established there was another glaring case in which, after a long laps© of time, and even without the aid of the highest criminal tribunal m tho land, the long arm of justice reached out effectively. A man named William Thompson, of New Cross—a man in a humble station in life—was twice sentenced (once to , three years’ penal servitude) for frauds : of which he was innocent. He was identified by no fewer than twenty-one witnesses. And one of these witnesses was the man who had actually com- ! mi tied the frauds ! Innocent men and women may suffer for a time, but in the long run justice triumphs, as it did in the famous case of George Edalji, a young solicitor, wlio was convicted of the terrible cattlemaiming outrages at Great W.yrlay, in Staffordshire. Mr Edalji was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude, but was released because it was found that h© was an innocent man. British justice is so “ broad based on the people’s will ” that, when it makes a mistake, it does not hesitate to say so. It said so in. tho case of Beck, in the case of Howard, in tho case of Thompson, in th© case of Edalji, and in other cases.