THE DAILY HERALD

London, England

26 July 1934

(page 7)

£5 GIVEN FOR LETTERS TO MODEL.

BOUND OVER FOR TWO YEARS.

ALEISTER CROWLEY.

Aleister Crowley, the author, was found guilty at the Old Bailey, of receiving four letters stolen from Betty May, the artist’s model, and was bound over for two years.

He was also ordered to pay 50 guineas towards the costs of the prosecution. “If anything of this kind happens again,” said Judge Whitely, “you will be brought to this court and sentences to six months for this offence.”

Mr. Melford Stevenson, prosecuting, said the letters disappeared from Betty May’s attaché case and were later produced during the hearing of a libel action in the High Court in which Crowley was the plaintiff.

It was stated that the letters were handed to Crowley by a man who got them from a Captain Cruze for £5.

“PERJURY RUMOUR”

In the witness-box Crowley said he had heard that Betty May was preparing to commit perjury.

“I wanted to know,” he added “whether these letters did prove the plans of Betty May that she was going to commit perjury.”

Crowley added that he never at any time suspected that the letters had been stolen.

Mr. Stevenson, in his prosecution, read an observation made about Crowley at the conclusion of his unsuccessful libel action.

“I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me,” the judge had said. “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.”

Judge Whiteley

Summing up, Judge Whiteley said it had been stated that the letters were security for a loan. He could not imagine anybody advancing a farthing for any of the letters.

“It is quite true,” he added, “that Crowley is a man who has not previously been 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 that he had to admit that at the close of the hearing of his libel action certain observations were made about him by the learned judge, “but it only comes to this,” he said, “that that is the view that Mr. Justice Swift had after having heard the evidence.”