CRIME OF BLACKMAIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 439, 3 December 1930, Page 10

CRIME OF BLACKMAIL

FIVE YEARS IN PRISON. JUDGE FAVOURS WHIPPING. REGRET AT LAW’S MILDNESS. Regret was expressed by the Recorder, Sir Ernest Wild, at the Old Bailey recently, that, the law did not permit whipping for blackmail. He was dealing at the time with the case of George Frederick Hamilton, aged 15, motorblrivcr, who had pleaded guilty to demanding with menaces three sums of £2O each from a clergyman, obtaining £1 by false pretences from a woman, and stealing a magneto. It was stated that the clergyman held a public office, the nature of which was not disclosed. Mr Gerald Dodson, who prosecuted, explained that. Hamilton gave himself up to the police at Plymouth “for a couple of jobs he had done recently in London,” but he had persistently been demanding sums of money from a clergyman and prisoner’s wife. The clergyman had befriended Mrs Hamilton, who was under his supervision, and that was the only reason they were brought into relationship at all. In his career of crime Hamilton had descended to the lowest depths. The clergyman, counsel explained, was attached to a public institution at which the wife of Hamilton discharged certain duties, and in a series of letters accused demanded sums of money from the clergyman in increasing amounts. Detective-Sergeant Northcot t that prisoner’s real name was Tnl!.: i. He was the son of respectable work-ing-class people, and was burn at Deptford. There are |.j convictions against him for larceny, embezzlement, and other offences. On one occasion, on his release from prison, the Salvation Army befriended him and employed him as an orderly at one of their shelters. Ultimately Hamilton became acquainted with a religious sect known as the Apostolic Church, in Brixton, where he became a regular attendant, but defrauded people belonging to the society. Prisoner was married, but lived apart from his wife. In addition to the letters to the clergyman, Hamilton wrote a menacing letter to a titled member of Parliament threatening to expose him. There was also another charge against him which Hamilton asked to be taken, into consideration when sentence was passed. The Recorder: Has ho blackmailed anyone else!—No. He has continually blackmailed the clergyman?—Yes. He rs a plausible liar, and has robbed people who befriended him. In passing sentence the Recorder observed Hamilton’s career had been a constant, record of dishonesty. If he had contented himself with dishonesty the judge said he might have yielded to the appeal of his woman counsel, Miss Phipps, to give him a chance, but the previous offences of which he had been convicted were as nothing compared with the foul, vile crime of black-

mail. Sir Ernest’s only regret was that the law did not equip him with sufficient p -a er to give accused an adequate

•’ll is a great pity blackmailers can-r.-ot be whipped,” exclaimed the Recorder, who added that prisoner’s particular form of blackmail only enabled him to pass a sentence of five years’ penal servitude. That was the ?naximum punishment, and it gave him great, satisfaction to pass it upon Hamilton.