THE YORKSHIRE EVENING POST

Leeds, Yorkshire, England

28 June 1934

(page 9)

ALEISTER CROWLEY FOR TRIAL.

LETTERS OF WOMAN MODEL.

Author Charged with Receiving Them.

Edward Alexander Crowley (Aleister Crowley, the author). of Upper Montagu Street, W., appeared on remand to-day at Marylebone Police Court charged with feloniously receiving five letters, the property of Betty Sedgwick [Betty May]. Mr. Crowley is 58.

He was committed for trial, bail being allowed in £10.

At the previous hearing, Mr. Edward F. Iwi, who prosecuted, said that certain documents which were the subject matter of the charge were at present in the custody of the Master of the Crown Office.

Application would have to be made in the High Court for the documents to be produced.

To-day Mr. Iwi said that the letters were alleged to have been received between June 21, 1933, and April, 1934 from a house in Seymour Street, in which Mrs. Sedgwick was living in June, 1933.

"According to my instruction," Mr. Iwi added, "those documents were stolen when she was there, and were received by the defendant, knowing them to have been stolen.

Last April, when Mrs. Sedgwick was a witness in the case Crowley v Constable and others, certain documents were put to her and ordered by Mr. Justice Swift to be kept in the Court's custody.

Documents Produced.

Mr. Iwi now produced the documents which he explained were in his personal care.

Prosecutrix, in the box, said that she was a model usually known professionally as "Betty May," and was now living at Hampstead. She did not see the five letters—four originals and a copy—after June last year until the High Court action.

Mr. Iwi: Did you willingly part with these letters to anybody?—No.

"What value do you place on them? Mr. Iwi asked. "Sevenpence half-penny," was Mrs. Sedgwick's reply.

She said that a Captain E. Cruze, or Cruse, was living in the Seymour Street house in June, 1933.

Mr. Gallop (cross-examining). Had Cruze as far as you know, any money at all?

Mrs. Sedgwick: None.

She agreed that she went with Cruze to see a solicitor.

Mr. Gallop: What was the object?—To prevent me from being attacked in Soho by "roughs."

Requests for Money.

She agreed that Cruze must have seen the letters in her possession. But she did not authorize him to get rid of them in the most advantageous manner he could.

The letters from her were requests for money.

Mr. W. W. Hunt, solicitor's clerk, said Mr. Crowley handed him five letters some weeks before the civil trial.

The magistrate said it was quite a different case, and one of which was outside the ordinary category of cases. When he saw the information he saw it was possible that there was a case. He was glad, he added, that someone else would finally deal with it.

Mr. Gallop, defending, said that following the magistrate's remarks he would not now call Crowley.