SIEVIER'S LIBEL SUIT.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 March 1920, Page 5

SIEVIER'S LIBEL SUIT.

PAST LIFE RECALLED. PLAIN TALK IN COURT. London, March 10. The action for alleged libel by R. Sievier against Richard' Wooton for distributing a pamphlet on the racecourse on Grand National Day, 1918, purporting to give Slevier's history, concluded to-day. A verdict was given for Wooton. Mr. Hastings, on behalf of Wooton, in response to Sievier's challenge, tendered a letter showing that Wooton was a member of the Australian Jockey Club. 1 Mr. Hastings, addressing the jury, said it was a public duty to see that Sievier was stopped. He asked the jury to say that Sievier was a cardsharper, a blackmailer, and a man with no char acter. Part of his stock-in-trade was a belief that persons he attacked would not dare to enter the witness box. There was not a year during the last thirty in which something disgraceful had not been proved against Sievier. The accumulated dividends of Sievier's three bankruptcies amounted to 4d. Mr. Hastings added that during the Boer AVar Sievier promised certain volunteers, at Dunstable, that their relatives would be given £IOO if they lost their lives. After the war, Sievier wrote that the insurance company would not pay, as the men were not shot, nor did they die from wounds. As a matter of fact, Sievier never insured the men at all. Sievier's letters about the bravo fellows were all lies. Sievier blackmailed Joel through the medium of the Winning Post. lie had brought libel actions and dropped them. Pconle had paid Sievier to stop him attacking them. Everything had been done except one—that was a thrashing. If Sievier were allowed to continue it would be a national misfortune. Sievier, addressing the jury, said that no one had been put in the bos to say, "Sievier you nave cheated me at cards." If so he would have retired from the case. Regarding the Dunstable volunteers, Mr. Hastings had forgotten to say that later he (Sievier) paid the money to the dependants of two men out of his own pocket. "It Is a diabolical falsehood," he said, "to say I . wanted to cheat widows and orphans of n miserable £2OO. I have lived a reckless life, and am a reckless man, but I have not lived a life to deserve the i.sfi.e of a pamphlet like this." Lord Reading, whose summing up took live hours, said that if the pamphlet were true, Sievier was not only a dangerous and wicked man, but a scoundrel. The question at issue was whether he was a dishonourable man, who ought to be hounded down, or only a wily person who had never done dishonourable tilings. M.id Reading pointed out. that Sievier discontinued his libel cases against f "pt-nin Rcnton, who lost .C2OOO :ind accused Sievier of eardsharping. The jury take the view that an innocent man would have insisted on the ease going through the Court. Lord Reading said lie gave Sievier a direct opportunity of explaining charges in connection with a man, nicknamed "D.-inkiug Horn." who signed cheques at six o'clock in the morning, and later said he was drunk, and could not write. Sievier wrote out the body of the cheques himself, one of the cheques being payable to Mabel Sievier. Lord Reading added that Sievier gave no satisfactory explanation regarding Horn's cheques. Lord Reading said that in connection with the case of the Duke of Braganza, at Monte Carlo, in 1901, there was the familiar juxtaposition of a young man and Sievier playing cards with a notorious sharper and cheat. Revealing the details of the Dey ease, in which Sievier was accused of blackmailing and welshing, Lord Reading said the jury on that occasion, found that Sievier blackmailed, but was not a welsher. The jury was absent for half an hour. ■Sievier asked for a stay of execution pending appeal. Lord Reading said if Sievier paid the costs Wooton would probably undertake to repay if he lost on appeal, Mr. Hastings agreed