STRUGGLE IN COURT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 146, 22 June 1934, Page 3

STRUGGLE IN COURT

OLD BAILEY INCIDENT

Even the officials at . the Old Bailey, used as. they arc to drama, were taken aback when a :grey-haircd '.man rose from his seat "beside the: barristers' benches and insisted on talking to the Judge, says the "News Chronicle."

A manslaughter case was being heard by Mr. Justice Macnaghten. Suddenly an elderly man stood up' in court and said, "My ~l6rd,~T'waiit" to iriako an application in,connection with a previous copyright case."

There was a hush. Barristers and court officials waited for the Judge to speak. Speaking slowly and with dignity, Mr. Justice Macmighten said: "I cannot hear you. "j ' :

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 th'o man and asked him.to withdraw from the court, but he waved a bundle of papers and shouted: "These are the documents which werp suppressed in my case." Another constable went towards the man, but he clung to the' sides of the benches, and cried: "These, documents wore 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 interview, that his name was Albert Close, and that he lived at Ilford. He was a maker of sea charts.

"I was prosecuted at Bow Street in 1930," he said, "for infringing the copyright of Admiralty charts, although I had had permission to reproduce them for twenty-six years; I 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 Navy and to Russia to get charts for the use of our own British fishermen."