Last Act in Thrilling Gold Coast Drama

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 20

Last Act in Thrilling Gold Coast Drama

Dr. Knowles Tells of His Release

■ N less than 24 hours after the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had decided to allow the appeal of Dr. Benjamin Knowles against his conviction and sentence to death for I the murder of his wife in Ashanti, Dr. ! Knowles passed through the doors of Maidstone Prison, a free man. It was at 3 p.m. that the decision of the Privy Council was reached, and immediately Mr. John Angus, an Aberdeen lawyer, who represented Dr. Knowles, set about the task of inducing the authorities to expedite the release of his client, but very faint hope of immediate action was held out to him. To his delight there was a letter in his mail the following morning intimating that Dr. Knowles would be released from prison immediately, and Mr. Angus was advised to make arrangements to meet him. The news came as a surprise also to the sister of Dr. Knowles. She had expressed her intention of visiting her brother to tell him of the glad tidings. In a large saloon car the sister, accompanied by her husband and Mr. Angus, set out from London, arriving at Maidstone Prison shortly before 12 o’clock. The party was admitted and received by the Prison Governor, who almost immediately gave instructions for Dr. Knowles to be brought to the room. There was an affecting little scen£ when the brother and sister met, but little time was wasted before the newly-released man was outside the prison. Looking fairly well, and dressed in a light-coloured suit and a new felt hat of a grey shade, Dr. Knowles appeared to be delighted to be at liberty, and to the “World's Pictorial News” he gave a graphic description of his last hours in the prison. “I have been worried/’ he said, “even up to the end. In that strange, underground ’method which obtains in prisons I have received news of the progress of the hearing of the appeal, and my heart sank a little when I was told that it -was going against me. “To a certain extent I have faced the vicissitudes of fortune to such an extent that I have grown callous, but this seemed like the last straw. “I was back in my cell and had actually had my evening cocoa when I was sent for by the governor. You perhaps can imagine my feelings, for I certainly cannot describe them—when he told me that the appeal had been successful, that the Privy Council had quashed my conviction, that the next morning I might walk out of the prison gates a free man. “It is not surprising that I did not sleep a wink that night. I lay on ray bunk picturing the morrow, with all that it held for me, and it seemed as though the hours would never pass. “At the moment I feel, naturally enough, very shaken, but now that I am a free man again I shall go away quietly into the country to recuperate before I attempt to make any plan for my future. “By that same strange method of communication about which I have spoken already, and which I will not describe in detail, I have been kept in touch to a certain extent with the progress of my case, and I want to say emphatically that I resent in the strongest possible fashion some of the things which have appeared about me in some of the papers. “For instance, it was stated that my mother had sold her house and had realised every possession she had to pay the expenses of my appeal.

That is a tricked and deliberate lie. The only reason my mother decided to sell her house—and that decision tvas made long before this case came on—was because as an old lady she found the care of a large- house too much for her and decided to more into a smaller place.. Mot one pennypiece of her money at any time has been used in my- defence. “X do not suggest for one minute that she would not have been willing to do all that she could for me, but I would not allow it for one moment, and I am by no means so destitute that it would have been necessary. “Another impression I am anxious to correct is one about my health. It has been stated that I w-as in a terrible state and in hospital. That is so untrue that I can definitely state that I have never complained and have never reported sick.

X must tell you of the ingenious ruse by which with the assistance of the prison governor I was able to escape the crowd of newspaper men and other interested spectators who had assembled outside the prison gates to see me come out. “My sister, accompanied by her husband and Mr. John Angus, had come down in a saloon car to take me back. The arrival of that car was,

of course, noticed, and Press photographers were at once at work with the minimum of delay. However, the car was brought inside and the gates were closed. “I met my sister in the prison, and plans were discussed for eluding the sightseeds. One of the officials offered me the use of his car, and by a long and partly underground route I was led through the Sessions House and out of the precincts by another exit. ‘As we emerged there was not. a soul in sight, and in a few seconds I was on my way to London. Some few miles from Maidstone there is a pretty little village run (I believe) by the British Legion, a.nd there we awaited the arrival of the car iD which my sister had come down. “In a very short time it came in sight. The transfer was the work of only a moment, and with a cheery word from the official and a wave of the hand, we were off for London again. “It feels very strange to be free after my months in prison, both in Africa and in England, and at the moment I do not know what I shall do. The strain has been enormous, and I am only now beginning to feel the full effects of it, so that I feel distinctly shaky and in need of a rest. “I cannot discuss the whole terrible business just now. For the present I am content to think that it is all over, and that I have emerged safely from what was a terrible ordeal and might easily have been even more terrible.”