EXPLODER LOSES HIS CASE

Evening Star, Issue 19791, 15 February 1928, Page 6

EXPLODER LOSES HIS CASE

TITLES FOB A GUINEA JUDGMENT FOR NEWSPAPER Pres* Association—By Telegraph-Copyright LONDON, February 14. (Received February 15, at 11.30 a.m.) In the Mitchell-Hedges case judgment was given for the defendants. THE SUMMING UP. LONDON, February 14. (Received February 15, at 12.30 p.m.) Chief Justice Hewart, iu summing up in the Mitchell-Hedges case, said that it was remarkable that MitchellHedges had not called Bagot Gray, the originator of the hoax, and the other participants to swear that lie was not associated with it. It would not have been surprising had the jury intimated that after hearing MitchellHedges’a evidence they were satisfied that ho was in the hoax. “If you obtain the title of Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Fellow of the Zoological Society for a guinea, the thing becomes grotesque. When we see these titles enumerated on the title page of a book or menu card, we cannot help feeling that the man must be an impostor. The jury may or may not think that Jowitt put the case over high when he said that MitchellHedges was an impostor.” OFFER TO INFLUENCE JURY. TWO MEN CHARGED. LONDON, February 14. (Received February 15, at 12.30 p.m.) Two men wore arrested in MitchellHedges’s flat and were charged with attempting to obtain £I,OOO by false pretences. The prosecution alleged that they offered to influence the jury in the libel case by the payment of £I,OOO. Mitchell-Hedges informed the police.