SILENT GERMAN SPY UNMASKED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18186, 20 June 1927, Page 7

SILENT GERMAN SPY UNMASKED.

COURT HEARS STORY OF PLOT AGAINST A FRIENDLY POWER. LONDON, May 2. A mystery woman who had declined to disclose her identity and nationality when charged with being in possession ol an irregular passport, was unmasked at the Old Bailey yesterday by General Sir Wvndham Childs. Assistant Commissioner of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard. He stated that when her baggage was examined on her last arrival in London, invisible ink was found, together with certain documents in which invisible ink was used. This was developed, and there was no doubt that the woman had been engaged in espionage against a friendly foreign Power. The woman was charged in the name of “Ethel Chiles,” aged twenty-eight, and it was complained against her that she had conspired with another person to obtain a British passport by false pretences, and with refusing to answer certain questions reasonably put by an officer acting in execution of the Aliens Order, 1926. Opening the case for the Commis- ; sioner of Police, Mr Clarke described how, on her arrival at Dover from the Continent, the woman produced a pass- j port found to have been issued upon a j false application form. That form was signed in the name of a doctor, but the doctor had repudiated the signature, and declared that he did not know the person referred to. Taken to Scotland Yard. The form was left at Messrs Cook’s by a man, w’ho afterwards called for the passport, and had a German visa placed on it. When Chiles was taken to Scotland Yard she refused to give information of herself. The jury found “Chiles” guilty on