THE WRONG MAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 720, 21 December 1933, Page 5

THE WRONG MAN

("Post" Special Correspondent.)

striking likeness sends man to gaol in error RELEASED IN TWO MONTHS

London, Nov. 11. Shivering in the cold November wind, with the collar of his light summer suit turned up high round his neck, a man stepped through the gates of Lewes gaol — set free by order of the Home Office after serving- only two months of his six months' sentence. He stepped into a closed motor car, drove to Brighton for an interview with his solicitor, Mr. John C. Bosley, and then slipped quietly away to a secret destination. So ended one of the most remarkable identity puzzles of recent y.ears. • The man was Yankel Ivan Rovsky, a 34-year-old Rumanian Jew who was sentenced at Eastbourne on August 18 on a charge of obtaining £3 by fraud at a local hotel on June 10. His release follows a secret identification parade held at Eastbourne as the result of information placed be> fore the Home Offiee by Mr. Bosley. What happened at the parade has never been revealed, but it is known that Tanother prisoner, as well as Kovsky, went from Lewes gaol to take part in it. This second man was arrested after Kovsky had been sent to prison. He was charged with a similar offetice, and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He, too, was a foreign er, and the two men are said to bear a striking resemblance to one another. It is stated that Mr. Bosley will immediately communicate with ' the Home Office with a view to putting forward a claim for eompensation for alleged wrongful imprisonment. "I cannot tell you where Kovsky is now," said Mr. Bosley. "He is resting somewhere." Kovsky was first arrested at Brighton and put in the dock charged with defrauding a Brighton hotel keeper. The charge collapsed when the woihan who had been defrauded declared that she could not identify Koscky. But Kovsky was immediately rearrested and sent to Eastbourne, where he was sentenced. His sister came from Paris and put the case in the hands of Mr. Bosley, who eventually received from _ the Paris police a certificate of domicile showing that Kovsky was living in Paris at the time of the offence. The rooms in Guilford Street, Bloomsbury, where he had been living before his arrest were searched, and his passport was discovered. The passport was stamped at Newhaven on July 30— more than a month after the offence. These facts and documents were placed before the Home Office, and as a result the second identity parade was ordered.