PENAL SERVITUDE FOR HORATIO BOTTOMLEY

SEVEN YEARS. “HEARTLESS FRAUDS.”

Sentence of seven years’ penal servitude was passed on Horatio Bottomley, MP, at the Old Bailey yesterday, when he was found guilty of fraudulently converting to his own use large sums of money entrusted to him for investment in the Victory Bond Club and other similar schemes. Mr Justice Salter referred to the case as of great importance from the point of view of public rectitude and commercial morality. He referred to defendant’s long series of heartless frauds, and said he could see no mitigation whatever. The crime was aggravated by defendant’s high position, by the number and poverty of his victims, by the magnitude of his frauds, and by the callous effrontery with which they were committed and sought to be defended. Defendant intimated that it was his intention to appeal.

MR TRAVERS HUMPHREYS’ ADDRESS.

Mr Travers Humphreys, continuing his address at the close of the defence, said he agreed with Mr Micawber’s historic dictum, “Your financial position does not depend on your income but on your expenditure.” “One man may have £40,000 a year and yet hardly have a shilling to bless himself,” said counsel, “while another man may have only £250 a year and yet be a happy, free, and a comparatively wealthy man, because he owed no man anything, and even had £5 to spare.” It was fortunate in the present case they had the best possible evidence of the defendant’s real financial position in May and June, 1920. There was an old judgment debt against the defendant, who was anxious to annul his bankruptcy, and on May 4, 1920, he swore an affidavit in which he stated that his total income was £11,000 a year, of which for that year only £3,000 was free income. That was the position when he was drawing these colossal sums from moneys which did not belong to him. He said now that his income was £25,000 a year, at the end of 1919, and that by the middle of 1920 it had grown to £40,000. The jury could choose between the evidence of Mr Bottomley on oath in 1920, when he made the affidavit, and his evidence on oath in 1922, as to his income. Counsel asked the jury to accept the statement of Mr Bottomley in 1920, when at that time he was a poor man surrounded with difficulties and had to borrow a large sum of money in order to get his bankruptcy annulled and, to use his own expression, he was struggling to get himself out of his liabilities. Mr. Bottomley, at the close of counsel’s speech, rose from his seat at the solicitors’ table, and, addressing his lordship, said, “I will now go, my lord, to the place where accused persons usually go.” He then entered the dock and faced the court.

SUMMING UP.

His lordship then commenced his summing up. The case, he said, had been well conducted on both sides; by counsel for the prosecution with great care and conspicuous fairness, and by the accused with great vigour and ability. By the jury the case had been followed with unflagging attention. Questions regarding the history, management, and the financial position of the clubs had been responsible for a good deal of the time that had been occupied, but these only incidentally related to the charge against the defendant. The charge was not that he mismanaged the clubs, but that he fraudulently converted to his own use moneys entrusted to him, and that he did that on 23 different occasions. The things that must be proved by the prosecution in order to establish the guilt of the accused were three – the first was that he received the moneys for and on behalf of others; next, that he in fact converted the sum in question in each case to his own use; and, thirdly, that when he did that he did it dishonestly and fraudulently, knowing at the time that he was doing a dishonest thing. He might well have hoped to repay the money; no errand boy who stole a shilling out of the till but hoped to be able to repay it. The hope of replacing it was neither here nor there. The question was, was there conscious dishonesty at the time the money was appropriated? The onus of proof of those three things was upon the prosecution.