VICTIM OF CONSPIRACY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1913, Page 10

VICTIM OF CONSPIRACY

A CHARGE DISMISSED. , . After a trial extending over five days at Birmingham Assizes, George William Wake, aged 54, managing director, was acquitted of the charge of inciting Leonard Wilkinson, tho manager, to set fire to the Priory Exchange, a garage and horse and carriage repository, with intent to defraud the insurance company. It was alleged that Wake, before goini; abroad for a holiday, had had the premises packed with oil and inflammable material, and that the insurances were increased and a stock _ book drawn up with grossly inflated prices._ The fire was quickly extinguished, the premises being close to the Central Fire Station. The .judge said Wake was either guilty of a wicked attempt to obtain money by arson or the victim of a wicked conspiracy, supported by perjury, to oppress an innocent man. The suggestion of_ the defence that the crime w-as a conspiracy to injure Wake on the part of Wilkinson, Norris, the secretary of the company, and a man named Jackson, who had a violent personal antipathy to the prisoner, was extremely complicated and Machiavellian. Tho evidence of Wilkinson and Norris should not bo accepted unless corroborated. That of Jackson, who was brimming over with spile, should bo disregarded. It was urged in defence that Wilkinson cml Norris arranged the fire to cover up all evidence of defalcations of their ov, n.