GANG’S VENGEANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20480, 5 December 1934, Page 4

GANG’S VENGEANCE.

Ex-Convicts Who Feared Betrayal. STRANGE COURT STORY. (Special to the "Stal."> LONDOX, October 27. A story of vengeance by a gang of ex-convicts was told at Douglas (Isle of. Man) when their victim was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour. He was Anthony Grey, aged twentyetight years, who had pleaded guilty to ffour charges of obtaining credit and money by false pretences. Grey asked that twenty other charges should be taken into account. It was stated that his real name was William Henry Phillips, and that he was a native of Oldham. Accident Method. The Attorney-General (prosecuting) said Grey came to the Isle of Man in August. He met with an accident in a swimming bath and was taken to hospital. This was a method he appeared to have adopted on more than one occasion to get into touch with the kind of people on whom he trafficked—goodnatured people who visited patients. Representing himself to be an officer on leave from India with a large income and larger expectations, he obtained lodgings, goods and money. Defending counsel said that when Grey was in Pentonville Prison last year he tried to commit suicide by severing an artery and by swallowing a table fork. The governor and the doctor refused to believe his story regarding the fork, and put him into a strait-jacket in the padded cell for twenty-four hours. After a week of agony he was operated upon and the fork was removed from his stomach. After his release he went to see Mr Geoffrey Gilbey, the author, who had offered to help convicts. Grey found that Mr Gilbey had been robbed and offered to find out who had done this. Some ex-convicts discovered his intention and one night at Victoria Station he was set on by three men and “ beaten up.” He was six weeks in hospital and for some time was on the danger list.

He became a pianist in a Soho niglit club. While there, a member of the gang who attacked him told him he must clear out of London within twenty-four hours or he would be knifed. While in hospital in the Isle of Man an old lady, finding him friendless, visited him and brought her friends. In this way he got into the homes of the best families in the island. He could not tell them he was an ex-