Famous Trials Recalled By Death of Judge The Whitaker Wright Case

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 822, 16 November 1929, Page 18

Famous Trials Recalled By Death of Judge The Whitaker Wright Case

SHE sudden death of Lord Mersey, a Liverpool [ man. at the great age j of S 9 years, recalls to ‘ memory many prorninI ent trials at which he presided and not a few scenes which were intensely dramatic and thrilling. When he was on the bench he was Air. Justice Bigliam, while his clerk, friend and “right-hand man” was Mr. Arthur Pones, the father of the two famous actresses. Miss Phyllis and Miss Zena Dare, the latter of whom is now the Hon. Mrs, Maurice Brett. Perhaps the most striking case he ever heard was when Mr. Whitaker Wright, the financier, stood in the dock at the High Courts of Justice, charged with financial frauds. The case had excited widespread attention; and in the ordinary way would have been heard at the Central Criminal Court. But the stacks of records which had to be produced, as

well as the enormous number of expert witnesses who had to be called, made it desirable that the place of trial should be removed from the ordinary scene of alleged frauds. Tragedy in Court Wright was prosecuted by a famous K.C., and was defended by another who had a vast experience of company promoting methods and city life generally. The evidence was exceedingly complicated, and I recall bow even the most expert reporters j had difficulty in condensing and trans- ! lating it into easily readable sen- . tences. ’1 he great judge’s summingI up was, however, a masterpiece of : lucidity and fairness. After the j verdict of “guilty” had been returned, j The “master of- finances” as Whitaker j Wright was called, the man who had : built himself a palace with a billiard

loom under a vast lake, was taken below- and permitted to retire for a few moments. During that shod interval he swallowed a minute pillule which he had with him. and died instantly. Mr. Justice Bigham, riding home in his carriage, saw in succession a series of newspaper placards, whici bore the legends—“ Trial of Whitaker Wright.” “Sentence on Whitaker Wright,” and finally. “Death of Whitaker Wright.’* He was deeply meyed by- the tragedy; but it was afterward stated that as Wright suffered fror some heart trouble he could neTer have lived to complete his sentence. One case at Guildford concerned «- mair who was styled by the emineff detective who effected his arrest. ‘Tht wickedest man who ever cursed fills fair earth.” He was Richard Brinkley and had poisoned two old people by means of contaminated oatmeal stout. His desire had been to kill a man named Parker—a person whose name he had forged as witness to i spurious will. Brinkley was hanger and it was stated that others win ivhom he had been associated die! under mysterious rirrumstauces. At the same Assize a well-known boxer was charged with the slaughter of a man whom he had struck fatally in a railway carriage When the judge sent the guilty mar into penal servitude there arose an uproar in the court, caused by shrieking and hysterical women. The judge without looking up from the pape? before him. said sharply. “Clear ft* court.” And this was indicative his methods—the methods he adopt*-' in the Divorce Court, even when i* returned there as an octogenarian. Matrimonial Tangle While he presided over these conicyears before, he tried a case in whi: the veteran. Sir Edward Clarke, al' peared to represent a w oman who h»j married a Frenchman who afterwirrepudiated the marriage on t“ : ground that he had not attained '» age of manhood when he contract* the alliance, and had not obtained F father's consent. The man a* divorced in Paris, and the woflßbelieving herself free, married *; Englishman. She became the moth* of three children, and then the n" band left her and refused maint* ante on the ground that the French man was her legal husband. _ / This plea was upheld, by the ® a jv trate. and the woman appealed- u fortunately for her the judge hacF, pronounce that though the worn** would be regarded as free in ' she was married in England. made some severe comments on v i law as it stood, and gave an opi®’ j that it was very desirable that ajL lish girls should take every preca® before they allied themselvc 5 i foreigners.