HOLD-UP HOAX

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 8

HOLD-UP HOAX

THE MITCHELL-HEDGES CASE VERDICT FOR DEFENDANTS London. February 14. In the case in which F. A. MitchellHedges claimed damages from the “Daily Express” for alleged libel, judgment was given for the defendants. Lord Justice Hewart, summing up, said that it was remarkable that Hedges had not called Bagot Gray, the originator of the hoax, and other participants, to swear that Hedges was not associated with it. It would not have been surprising had the jury intimated, after Hedges’ evidence, that they were satisfied that he was in the hoax. “If you obtain the title of Fellow of the Geographical Society, and Fellow ol the Zoological Society, for a guinea, the thing becomes grotesque. When I see these enumerated on the title page of a book, or on a menu card, I cannot help feeling that the man must be an impostor. The jury may or may not think that Mr. Jowitt put the case over-high when he said that Hedges was an impostor.” Two men, arrested in Hedges’ flat, were charged with attempting to obtain £lOOO by false pretences. The prosecution alleged that they offered to influence the jury ill the libel case on payment of £lOOO. Hedges informed the police.