JEKYLL AND HYDE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 286, 4 December 1933, Page 5

JEKYLL AND HYDE

GOOD VALET AS CRIMINAL JUDGE ORDERS A FLOGGING. That Judges in Britain arc deter mined to put down armed robberies with a firm hand was emphasised once more at the Old Bailey in July, when a young man, who was described as a “tenor,” always going about armed, was sent to penal servitude for three years and ordered 12 strokes of the “cal.” Said by the police to have lived a Jekyll and Hyde existence, the man, Dudley Gordon King, aged 25, valet, was found guilty of robbing with violence Mr. Francis Salt at the Villiers Street rifle range in July, 1932, and stealing three automatic pistols. He pleaded guilty to stealing a woman’s handbag from the May Fair Hotel and asked that a further case of theft should be taken into consideration. Prosecuting counsel stated that in July last year King, with another man who had since been sentenced, entered the rille range. Mr. Salt was assaulted and robbed of three pistols, but King was not arrested until last June. King, in the witness-box, declared that he had nothing to do with the assault or the robbery. Ho was compelled by the other man to take the pistols at the point of the revolver. Dealing with the May Fair Hotel offence, counsel explained that King represented himself to bo a newspaper reporter and was admitted to the hotel to write a story. Ho was in evening dress and wandered about the hotel. He was kept under observation and was seen to take a woman’s handbag. When spoken to he produced a gold cigarette case from his sock. “King showed a marked disinclination to get up from the settee on which he was sitting,” added counsel. “Force had to be used to move him. He was taken a little way, and a waiter camo up and produced a loaded automatic pistol, which he found on the settee.” A detective stated that there was one charge of theft outstanding agains** King, which ho asked to have taken into consideration. King had no previous convictions. “He appears to

have led rather a Jekyll and Hyde life,” went on the officer. “He seems to have committed those offences between his various employments.” The officer added that King was an adventurous sort of person. “I have heard that he is definitely armed all the time,” he. continued. “He has bob ’- in a very, very cunning way. He is a man who always has a desire to possess firearms.” In sentencing. King the Recorder observed, “You have confessed to an impudent larceny at the May Fair Hotel, in which you were found with an automatic pistol, upon which you were sitting. You have been found guilty on the clearest evidence of robbery. “You and this other man he tween you —you undoubtedly being the stronger character —have ruined that poor man (Mr. Salt) for life, in order to possess yourself of automatic pistols wherewith to continue the gunman offences which have been so prevalent in the metropolis. “It is perfectly true you have not. been convicted before, and you are n very good valet, but you interspersed your honest occupation with various crimes of a serious nature.”