THE EVENING EXPRESS

Liverpool, Lancashire, England

24 July 1934

(pages 1 & 12)

“BETTY MAY” AND HER LETTERS

“I THINK CAPTAIN CRUZE STOLE THEM”

MR. CROWLEY ACCUSED OF “RECEIVING”

MRS. SEDGWICK AND “TIGER WOMAN” BOOK

“A LOT OF IT FABRICATION”

I think that Captain Eddie Cruze stole the letters; I know he did,” said Mrs. Betty Sedgwick, known as Betty May, when Edward Alexander Crowley, aged 58, also known as Aleister Crowley, described as an explorer, pleaded not guilty to the charge of receiving four original letters and one copy of a letter, alleged to have been stolen from Mrs. Betty Sedgwick.

“I kept the letters in an attaché case,” said Mrs. Sedgwick. “I took the case away with me and later found that they had gone from the case.

“I did not see them again until they were produced in the High Court action.”

Mrs. Sedgwick was referring to an action for libel brought by Mr. Crowley against a firm of publishers, in which Mrs. Sedgwick was a witness for the defense.

Mrs. Sedgwick said she had stayed with Captain Cruze.

She admitted in court today that “a lot” of the book “Tiger Woman: My Story, by Betty May,” which was published as her autobiography, was “fabrication.”

EVIDENCE IN ACTION.

Mr. Melford Stevenson, prosecuting, said that it was alleged that Crowley received the letters between June 21, 1933, and April 10, 1934.

The facts of the case were short and simple. In 1932 Crowley became a plaintiff in a civil action for damages for libel. That was brought a firm of publishers because of a passage in a book published by them in which certain reflections, according to Crowley, were made upon him in the name of Aleister Crowley.

Mrs. Sedgwick who was also known as “Betty May,” and had earned her living as an artist’s model had given the solicitors for the defence in that action a certain amount of information about Crowley and she was in June, 1933, expecting at some future time to be called as a witness to give evidence against him in the libel action.

In April, 1934, she gave the evidence and was cross-examined on it. As often happens, she had received from the solicitors for the defence certain sums for her expenses. In June, 1933, Mrs. Sedgwick was living at an address in Seymour-street. There was also living there a man named Cruze.

In her possession were a number of letters.

“There were four letters which had passed between her and the solicitors who were arranging for her to be called as a witness, and they were letters which disclosed the fact she had been receiving sums for expenses, and there was another letter which related to her arrangements with the publishers of a book she was preparing.

“You will hear from her,” said Mr. Stevenson, “that these letters and other personal documents were put by her in an attaché case which she had at Seymour-street.

“Towards the end of June she went to a cottage in the country and opened the attaché case and found that the documents had disappeared. The attaché case had been completely cleared out and the letters stolen.

“Those letters were never seen by her from then until April this year.

“When she was giving evidence for the defence, the letters were produced in court by counsel appearing for Crowley. Mrs. Sedgwick was cross-examined on those letters.

“You will hear that they were handed by Crowley to the clerk to his solicitors during the preparation of his case in the libel action.”

Mr. Stevenson said that it was not known who stole the letters. The only person who was likely to have any interest in their possession was Aleister Crowley, and the circumstances were such that it was for him to give an explanation of his possession of them.

Mrs. Betty Sedgwick, who gave her address as Southhill-park Gardens, Hampstead, said that she was known by the name of Betty May and was a model.

In June 1933 she was in communication with a firm of solicitors called Waterhouse and Co., and she had received some money from them for expenses.

Mr. Stevenson said that he must ask the solicitor for the prosecution for the letters in the case because Lord Justice Rigby Swift had ordered them to be kept in the custody of the court.

The letters were then handed to Mrs. Sedgwick, who said that she used to keep them in an attaché case with her passport and other private papers.

She went to her cottage near Maidenhead in June, 1933, and when she opened her case she found that the letters had gone.