EXTRAORDINARY PROSECUTION.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11487, 21 January 1903, Page 5

EXTRAORDINARY PROSECUTION.

SCANDALOUS OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS. A JUDGE'S SEVERE CENSURE. (FROM Otß OWN rORBESPOJTDENT.) LONDON. December 12. A great commercial case, which occupied the Central Criminal Court for fourteen days, lias come to a conclusion, ajid has resulted in the acquittal of six of the eight defendants, while the remaining two were convicted on only two counts of the thirty-one in the indictment. The prosecution was one of great interest and importance h> city men, involving as it did no fewer than fire well-known firms, each of which failed toward the end of last year, with aggregate liabilities of over £500,000. and assets' of about £15,000. The. money said to have been fraudulently obtained by thu focused from bankers and bill-brokers amounted altogether to £107,000, the offences alleged beini; the obtaining of loans by fake pretences when the borrowers were insolvent, the over-valuation of goods pledged, and dealings in " accommodation" bills and exchange cheques. The books and documents produced in the cruise of the cose filled a fair-sized room at the Old Uiiiley. The exhibits numbered nearly 600, printed copies forming three bulky volumes, and the depositions ran to nearly a thousand folios. The accused were Edward Beauchamp Rogers and Norman Henry Everard Rogers, produce brokers, Mincing Lane; Randome Wullis and Algernon Wal'.is, provision merchants. Tooley street; Sheppard James Run some and Arthur Jamas Ransome, colonial merchants, Leadenliall street ; and Joseph Rolls Short, produce merchant, Crosby Square. Richard M. Newton, bristle merchant, of Manchester, was found not guilty and discharged.

The Recorder, Sir Forrest Fulton, K.C., in .summing up, 'administered a well-de-served casstigation to the persons who conducted the prosecution, and proceeded to ■expos* a series of monstrous outrages upon personal liberty. It is a curious and suggestive fact tfi'at the learned Judge's remarks were fuppresaed by most o£ the London newspapers. The " Daily Telegraph.' , however, to its credit ba it said, published them very fully.

The Judge said he wished to enter an emphatic protest against the practice which he had seen growing up of presenting cases at enormous length; these prosecutions were highly oppressive. They amounted in substance to a denial of justice, because the bills, owing to the length and complicated nature of the evidtence, could not be presented to the Grand Jury, and the injustice of that never met with a more perfect illustration than in the present case. It appeared to him, too, that the application for warrants against those men was most unnecessary. There was not the smallest ground for believing they would not have appeared had they been summoned, which, in his opinion, would havo been the proper ccurse. They were arrested on war rants, and how ? He hoped no one connected with the case was so utterly devoid of ordinary humanity as to choose Saturday afternoon to apply for" the warrants, so that the accused might be 'arrested at ten o'clock the same night, when it was well known that the superintendent of the station had no power to grant bail, and that they must therefore be kept in custody. It must have been, and lie hoped it. was. merely a thoughtless act. Sir Forrest Fulton went on to refer to ons appeal case of gross unfairness and Hβ pointed out that Alderman Ritchie, who had heard the case, .saw the fallacy of the charge against Mr Newton, anil dismissed it, but the learned counsel, whose ordinary sound common sen.se seemed to have been obxuured, wa« not satisfied, find applied to the Attorney-General, with the result that Mr Xewton was indicted with the others, and had been again discharged. That brought him back to the j-oinl from which he started,, because there could be very little doubt that a grand jury would have taken the saipe view of the matter. It was said that there was no wrong without a remedy, but that was not so here, because if ever there was r. case in which a man who had be:« unjust! r prosecuted would 1*» able to show mnlice thi* was one. But. 'unfortunately,, his civil rights were gone; he could not nn action against the Director of Public Prosecutions. He wondered what a jury would say: "Airested on Saturday nignt, made to "sleep on a. plank bed, case disniifced by the Magistrate, Atorney-Ueneral'.f fiat obtained, and then acquitted by the jui j without calling upon the counsel for the defence." Mr Dickens, no doubt. would like to appear in the case, and ask a special jury to .estimate th«? damages. But Mr Newton had no remedy at all. As tr> Uie case generally, could it fairly be said that it misrht have been lightened and presented" in a form in which, it might have been heard in a few days? He though* a moment's consideration would show that it could. The Wallisses, for instance, had nothing whatever to do with the over-valua-tion charges, and to include them in th<: indictment was pure prejudice. It only showed how the natural intelligence of the learned counsel could be obscured by tne overwhelming details of the case, pro-ca-ding to deal at length with the separate counts, Sirt Forrest Fulton said the main quest-ion for the jury to crmsider was whetlK-r, at the time these bill transactions were being earned on, tiie accused knew they were insolvent. It w;is a very remarkable, thing that if since 1897 these persons had been engaged in a huge con they had done nothing to prevent discovery, and that although their atfajf.-< had been fully investigated in the Bankruptcy Court, it was not found that they had committed a single offence against the Debtors Act.

AfU-r retiring for an hour and a half, the jury found Edward Rogers ami Short guilty on two counts—one tlie general con>'|)inuv diargo, :ind the other dealint; witn the obtaining of iui advauce from .Frith. Siinds by alleged false pretenut.s lite other defendants were acquitted on ;ill the charges. In passing sentence. Sir Ftrrtst Fulton s:Jd lie to<jk inta ccociideration the i>r>>t ratted ]>roct'ediiigs and tlw? enormous fiof the defence. The two dmd already l>«*n severely punished, ftnn rlk-y -would" now have'to undergo nine month* , imprisonment in the «ec»sd division. On hearing the sentence passed on K. >>. Rogers, his mother, an ag.:-d lady, living with an invalid son, -nae seized wuh a tit and died; she was well i.nown and iiigniy respected.