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The Times
Thursday February 3 1927
Alleged Inciting to Kidnap
Woman Charged
Minnie Gilbert, 39, of Leamington, who has been charged with inciting others to kidnap the children of a distant relative at Colne, Lancashire, again appeared before the Manchester magistrated today. It is alleged that she made an offer of £500 to Charles Frederick Billington and James Francis Taylor, defendants in a house tenancy fraud charge, to kidnap a girl and boy named Bateman, to whom a share of a large fortune was stated to be coming when they were of age.Two other charges of a similar nature have also been mentioned by the prosecution, one concerning the same children and one referring to girl twins of the accused's sister, Mrs. Starr, who lives at Wigan. The twins, aged 13, are stated to have been actually kidnapped from a boarding school at Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool. The accused, who was not legally represented, looked very ill on surrendering to her bail.
In opening the case Mr. Webster said it was an odd circumstance that about the time of the alleged offence in reference to the Bateman children Browner, who was a defendant in the kidnapping charge in Liverpool when Henry Pollitt, the Socialist leader, was the victim, received an anonymous letter as follows:-
"Would you like to join others and get big profits for little risk? If so, advertise in the personal column Daily Mail, commencing Willie." Then followed in this message the initials of Browner and others charged in the Pollitt episode. In the defendant's possession, on arrest, was found a newspaper cutting containing the names of those four defendants. Mr. Browner saw the police at Liverpool, and with their knowledge caused to be inserted in the Daily Mail an advertisement addressed "Willie" in the following terms:- "We are all ready to join you."
In reply Browner received a typewritten communication requesting that Donald Bateman should be kidnapped on the same lines as Mr Pollitt-namely, for a few dyas only. This was accompanied by a promise to pay £200 and expenses for the job. A letter was also enclosed to Mrs. Bateman saying, "Your boy will be returned to you if you make reparation to me according to law. If you make any effort to find your boy or seek police help you will never see him again." No action was taken at that time. In reference to the charge concerning the twin girls it was stated they were at school at Poulton-le-Fylde, and the head of it had been warned not to allow them to be taken out. With the aid of a cousin, however, the defendant got hold of the children and took them in a taxicab, first to Preston and then to Southport by train. Their father, however, succeeded in tracing them.
James Hayton Browner, tailor, of Upper Parliament-street, Liverpool, said he was tried and acquitted in the Pollitt kidnapping charge. He recalled receiving the letter referred to and taking the action described.
A police witness said that he visited Gilbert and got her to do some typewriting on her portable typewriter. He thought it similar to that in the letter sent to Browner.
After evidence had been given by Margaret Southworth, spinster, of Hampstead, to the effect that she was persuaded to leave the twins with Gilbert until a later train, Hilda Starr, whom Mr. Webster first addressed as Mary, saying she and her sister were as alike as two peas, described how they went in a taxicab with the last witness and the defendant.
The hearing was adjourned till to-day.
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Mel
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