DOUBLE LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22985, 14 September 1936, Page 7

DOUBLE LIFE

POLICEMAN BY DAY Handsome Rees Harry Davies, 20 years of age and of splendid physique, police constable by day and dangerous burglar by night—he’s now serving three years’ penal servitude. The amazing adventures of this brilliant youth who pitted his brain against the best of Scotland Yard and nearly won can now be revealed. Known as Frederick Thompson, he is the son of respectable parents living at Greenhithe, Kent. He won a free place to Dartford Grammar School, but was expelled. Then Davies went to the Gravesend County School for Boys, where he matriculated with honours. He became a member of the Greenhithe Congregational Church, obtained a post as a junior chemist

and then went to the Police Training School. Davies, with his exceptional brain, had no need to study for examinations. To pass them was his second nature. But girls were his downfall. He was spending money—the money a raw constable does not get to live up to a West End standard. Then Davies became friendly with a Stepney jeweller—got to know his habits. One night in the section house of an East End police station he became restless, telling his colleagues he could not sleep. Davies went out. “ to get a glass of water,” he said. Within an hour the jeweller’s had been burgled of £750 in goods and notes stolen. Police Constable Davies had entered the manager’s bedroom and stolen the kqys of the safe. To lay a false trail me removed a window pane. Scotland Yard had suspicions and questioned Davies, but he did not flicker an eyelid. He had even hid-

den the stolen property in his cubicle!

For weeks Davies was shadowed, and because he would not spend his money for fear of being discovered he resigned the force.

He lived in a small flat at Pimlico, and made excursions to Dartford and Greenhithe to carry out burglaries. On the night of June 5 he went to Dartford, leaving his motor cycle in a lane. P.C.’s Wimsey and Hopper heard a noise behind some shops, and after a struggle Davies was arrested. Wimsey received blows on the head from Davies’s jemmy, and only escaped “ possible death ” because of his helmet.

Later, on being taken from Brixlon Prison to Wormwood Scrubs, he leapt from the police car, but was captured after a chase. And as Davies, alias Thompson, stood in the dock at Maidstone Sessions. he took his punishment without flinching.