THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH

Belfast, Antrim, Northern Ireland

26 July 1934

(page 7)

“RECEIVING STOLEN LETTERS.”

SENTENCE ON CROWLEY.

AFTERMATH OF LIBEL ACTION.

The hearing of the case for the defence was continued at the Old Bailey, London, yesterday, when the trial of Edward Alexander Crowley (58), who was described as an explorer, was resumed.

Crowley was charged with receiving four original letters and one copy said to have been stolen from Mrs. Betty Sedgwick, professionally known as Betty May, an artists’ model, of South Hill Park Gardens, 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 on Tuesday 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 [Abbey of Thelema] were correct. She alleged that a man named Captain Eddie Cruze had stolen the letters from her.

Judge Whitely, summing up, said that Crowley had not been previously charged with any criminal offence at all.

“So far as that is concerned he comes into this court with a good character,” the Judge added.

Crowley was found guilty. He was bound over for two years and ordered to pay a sum not exceeding fifty guineas towards the cost of the prosecution.