HONEYMOON SEQUEL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1939, Page 3

HONEYMOON SEQUEL

attempt to evade customs DUTIES. HEAVY FINE FOR WEALTHY MAN’S BRIDE. A fine of £782 13s 4d, with five guineas costs, was imposed at Croydon Airport, England, on Mrs Margaret Milne Turner, of Edgemoor, Buxton, Derbyshire, for attempting to evade payment of Customs duties on jewellery and dresses. The penalty represented the value oi the articles and duty payable. Mr B. M. Stephenson, for the Customs, said that Mrs Turner had been spending her honeymoon in the south of France, and owing to trouble with the domestic staff at her home returned to England for a few days. She arrived a’t Croydon Airport, and told a customs officer that she was returning to the Continent after a short stay in England. She declared gloves and stockings, and then said she had nothing further. In one of her cases, however, was found an empty jewel case bearing the name of the highestclass jewellers on the Continent. She w T as asked where the contents were, and showed the officer the diamond watch she was wearing, explaining that she had forgotten to declare ""Three more jewel cases were found. Two were empty and the other contained a signet ring. Mrs Turner said that the ring had been taken abroad, and that the other cases had contained jewels she had left in Cannes. A senior officer was called, and he asked her whether she was wearing any of the jewels which came out of the cases. Then she “crumpled up,” and said: “I had better tell you the whole truth.” She produced a bracelet, which had cost £250, from underneath the sleeve of the blouse she was wearing, and a brooch Irom underneath her scarf. Nearly all the clothes in her cases had come from firms abroad. Mr Stephenson declared that the case was a deliberate and premeditated attempt to defraud the- revenue at a time when everyone was trying to do what they could to assist the country. Mrs Turner was of good position and her husband was wealthy. Mr St John Hutchinson, K.C., defending, denied that there was premeditation, and described any suggestion that Mrs Turner was scheming to smuggle the articles as “completely fantastic.” “I have listened with a certain degree of outrage to the way in which this case has been put before you,” he added. “Mrs Turner has been brought up without much knowledge of the world, and had never been abroad before.

' “When she was in Paris on her honeymoon her husband gave her the jewels and dresses. She had a bad crossing, and felt very, ill and was' slightly hysterical when she arrived. “The dresses she brought with her were merely for use during the few days she intended to remain. “There was no attempt to conceal the empty jewel cases, and she was wearing the jewellery for sentimental reasons.”

Mr Stephenson replied that he could call witnesses to state that, far from being ill at Croydon. Mrs Turner was self-possessed and showed no signs of hysteria.