THE YORKSHIRE EVENING POST

Leeds, Yorkshire, England

25 July 1934

(page 7)

CROWLEY BOUND OVER FOR TWO YEARS.

"RECEIVING" LETTERS.

Court References a Libel action.

Edward Alexander Crowley (58), who was described as an explorer, was bound over at the Old Bailey, to-day for two years, and ordered to pay a sum not exceeding 50 guineas towards the cost of the prosecution.

Crowley was found guilty of receiving four original letters and one copy, said to have been stolen from Mrs. Betty Sedgwick, professionally known as "Betty May," an artist's model. of Hampstead.

Mr. Melford Stevenson, prosecuting, said that the letters disappeared from Mrs. Sedgwick's attaché case, and were later produced during the hearing of a libel action in the High Court in which Crowley was the plaintiff. The letters referred to the payment of certain expenses by a firm of solicitors to Mrs. Sedgwick, who was a witness for the defence in the action, and she was cross-examined upon them.

Mrs. Sedgwick was questioned at length yesterday by Mr. C. Gallop, defending, about a book she had written called "Tiger Woman. My Story By Betty May." She said that parts of the book were untrue but the passage about Crowley and the Abbey were correct. She alleged that a man named Captain Eddie Cruze had stolen the letters from her.

Bought for £5.

George Mather, merchant, of Cambridge Terrace, London, continuing his evidence for the defence to-day said when he told Crowley that Cruze had the letters in his possession Crowley said he would like to see them and see if they were relevant, and he would like copies. Witness got copies of the letters and Crowley asked him to secure the originals. Witness said he had not the slightest suspicion that they had been stolen.

Mather added that he gave Cruze £5 for the letters, and handed them to Crowley. He got the £5 from Crowley.

Mr. Gallop: Were they lent, obtained, or procured for the purpose of being disclosed to the Judge and jury in the libel action?—Quite.

Was I the intention that they should be disclosed when Mrs. Sedgwick was in the witness-box?—Yes.

Crowley giving evidence, said he was an author and poet writing under the name of Aleister Crowley. He was plaintiff in the action of Constable and another. He heard that Mrs. Sedgwick would probably be called as a witness against him. He did not regard her as a trustworthy person.

Mather told him that Betty May was preparing to commit perjury, and that Cruze's story could be substantiated. Witness said he wanted to know if letters in possession of Cruze proved the plans of Mrs. Sedgwick that she was going to commit perjury.

Theft Never Suspected.

Witness said he had no reason to disbelieve the story which Mather told the court of how Cruze got the letters. At the time he had this conversation with Mather he had instructed the solicitors in the libel case. The solicitor discussed the usefulness of the letters if the originals could be obtained. Witness did not at any time suspect that the letters had been stolen., and none of his legal advisors suggested that they might have been stolen.

Cross-examined, witness said he represented himself as a respectable person whose word could be trusted.

Regarding the libel action, counsel quoted Mr. Justice Swift as saying: "I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me. I have learned in this case that we can always learn something more if we live long enough. Never have I heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous, abominable stuff as that produced by the man who describes himself to you as the greatest living poet."

Crowley said the quotation, as far as he knew, was accurate. The Judge, he said, was referring to the book. Witness agreed he had been expelled from Italy, but denied he had been expelled from America. In France he was refused permission to remain on a technical point. He had not been expelled from India.

It was clear, he added, that the letters in question were addressed to Miss Betty May, who was the wife of a friend of his, and that he paid £5 for them.

Isidore Kerman, senior partner in a firm of solicitors, said he remembered Crowley showing him copies of the letters. Crowley's view was that Miss May was trying to sell her evidence to defendant in the libel action.