SHOOTING AT A JUDGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 148, 26 June 1934, Page 9

SHOOTING AT A JUDGE

EXCITED OLD MAN. TUSSLE IN COURT. Even the officials at the Old Bailey, used as they arc to drama, were taken aback last‘month when a grey-haired man rose from his scat beside the barristers’ benches and insisted on talking to the judge. A manslaughter case was being heard by Mr. Justice Macnaghten. Suddenly an elderly man stood up in court and said: “My lord, I want to make an application in connection with a previous copyright case.” There was a‘ hush. Barristers and cour officials waited for the judge to speak. Speaking slowly and with dignity, Mr. Justice Macnaghten said: “I cannot hear you.” Undeterred, the grey-haired man went on excitedly: “They suppressed the documents when I was prosecuted. Again the judge said he could not hear the application, A constable went up to the man and asked him to withdraw' from the court, but he waved a bundle of papers and shouted: “These are the documents which were suppressed in my case.” Another constable went toward the man, but he clung to the sides of the benches, and cried: ‘‘These documents were suppressed because the Stationery Office and the Admiralty tried to start printing works all over the country to do the work themselves.” There -was a struggle, and the man was taken from the court by the policemen. He afterwards said, in an inter view', that his name was Albert Close, and that he lived at Ilford. He was a maker of sea charts. “I w r as prosecuted at Bow Street in 1930.” he said, “for infringing the copyright of Admiralty charts, although 1 had had permission to reprofor 26 years. was then asked for royalties which were so prohibitive that I could not afford to pay them, and I have had to go to the United States and to Russia to get charts for the use of our own British fishermen.”