EXPLORER LOSES CASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 280, 16 February 1928, Page 12

EXPLORER LOSES CASE

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES FROM “DAILY EXPRESS” OUTCOME OF HOAX By Cable. — Press Association. — Copyright. LONDON, Tuesday. In the case in which the explorer, Mr. F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, claimed damages for alleged libel from the “Daily Express” in connection with a hold-up of the plaintiff in January, 1927, judgment was given for the defendants. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, in his summing up to the jury, said it was remarkable that plaintiff had not called Mr. Bagot Gray, the originator of the hoax, or the other participants in it, to swear that plaintiff was not associated with it. It would not have been surprising had the jury intimated after Mr. Mitchell-Hedges’s evidence that they were satisfied he was in the hoax. “If you obtain the title of Fellow of the Geographical Society, or Fellow of the Zoological Society, for a guinea, the thing becomes grotesque. When you see them enumerated on the title page of a book or a menu card, you cannot help feeling that the man must be an impostor. The jury may not think that counsel for the defendants, Mr. Jowitt, put the case too high when he said plaintiff was an impostor.” Two men who were arrested at plaintiff’s flat were charged with attempting to obtain £I,OOO by false pretences. The prosecution alleged that they offered to influence the jury in the libel action if they were paid £I,OOO. Plaintiff informed the police of the matter. —A. and N.Z.