Kinematograph year book (1944)

In the Courts. 149 with a direction that they should be barred from kinemas for various periods. In other cases orders have been made for the payment of or towards the cost of damage. At a Bristol prosecution, however, the Bench did inflict the salutary fine of £3 and £2 towards the damage. Wilful Damage.— Because the box of a kinema became too hot for him an 18 -year-old operator, Christopher Vivian Augustus Clarke, deliberately stuck tacks in the oil so that when the machines were oiled they would muck up the gears and the machines would be stopped for the day and give them all a day off. He was further charged at Swansea in October with breaking into the kinema and stealing cigarettes and a cash bag of a total value of £2 3s. 2d. He was sentenced to one month's hard labour on each charge to run concurrently. CONSPIRACY. Liverpool Manager Vindicated. — The imposition at Liverpool Assizes, on April 15, of sentences of imprisonment for conspiracy topervert the course of justice and of subornation of perjury was a vindication of a Liverpool manager who was the victim of charges made by a woman and her 20-year-old son. The case arose from the evidence which they gave in Liverpool Police Court on March 30, 1942, when Edward Appleton, relief manager at the Victoria Kinema, Cherry Lane, Liverpool, was convicted of assault and fined £5. Accused were Mrs. Margaret Ellen Lloyd (45) and James Edward Lloyd (20), motor driver, both of Walton, Liverpool. A warrant had been issued for the arrest of another person, but the police had not been able to execute it. According to the prosecution, the two Lloyds went to the kinema, and Mrs. Lloyd complained to Mr. Appleton about the dismissal of her young son. Mrs. Lloyd became abusive, and when told they must leave the premises, she struck and kicked the manager. She issued a summons against Appleton for assault. In the meantime, the Lloyds arranged with a man named George A. Adams (for whose arrest a warrant has been issued) to go as a witness and tell a false story. Adams told the magistrates he saw Appleton strike Mrs. Lloyd, adding that he had never seen her before, which the prosecution alleged was a deliberate, untruth. The prosecution's view was that Adams spent a night at Lloyds' house and concocted the scheme against Appleton, who, at the police court, was fined £5 and £3 3s. costs. DEFALCATIONS. Prison for Production Accountant.— Sentence of five years' penal servitude was passed at the Old Bailey, January 20, on Robert Donald Alexander, 32, of Weybridge, Surrey, formerly Chief Accountant to the Twentieth Century Productions, Ltd., who pleaded guilty to twelve charges alleging conspiracy, fraud, forgery, and theft. Stanley Herbert Edwards, 44, a jeweller, of Beckenham, Kent, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in connection with the same series of offences. It was stated that £16,000 was involved. Alexander had asked for 25 other cases to be taken into . consideration, 21 of them against his last employers, representing a total of £6,715. Alexander lived lavishly and bought house for £2,000. His salary was £14 10s. a week. Derek Curtis Bennett (for Alexander) said that his work took him to the West End, where he met people very much better off than he was, and he began to spend more than he was earning. One of the women he met knew he was obtaining money dishonestly, and she blackmailed him for £1,500, while, according to Alexander, Edwards had shared in the business to the extent of between £3,000 and £4,000. Stole Buffet Takings. — Richard Edward Marcoso, 36-year-old South African, was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment at Southend on August 20, after pleading guilty to seven charges of stealing sums of money amounting to £93 15s. 8d. while employed as manager of the Regal, Southend. It was stated that Marcoso received the missing money from the buffet bar manageress and the cashiers, but failed to pay it into the bank It was also alleged that whilst manager of the Coliseum, Harringay, he stole £150 12s. iod. takings.' This and another charge of stealing £15 9s. iod., employees' National Health Insurance, from the Regal, Southend, were taken into consideration. Former Manager Gaoled.— Thomas Fleming, formerly assistant manager of the Birmingham Hippodrome, was sentenced to three years' penal servitude at Birmingham Quarter Sessions on Monday last (March 8) on charges of fraud and forgery against his employers, th Gaumont British Corporation, Ltd. The cha<c -jes included the stealing of £183 and £382 15s. and the forgery of bank slip summaries and returns. The prosecution alleged that Fleming made false entries in the returns, paying in less money than he should have done and stealing the difference. There were previous convictions for false pretences, but the police stated that for the past ten years Fleming had gone straight. Relief Manager's Theft.— Alleged to have stolen £158 from the Kingsway, Manchester, when he was acting as relief manager, James Clarke (53), of Timperley, assistant manager of the Regal, Altrincham, was fined £25 or 73 days' imprisonment at Manchester on July 29. Of the money taken, £125 was recovered. COMPENSATION. Usherette's Claim. — A Barrow usherette, Annie Graveson, was awarded £75 compensation against her employers, Union Cinemas, Ltd., at Barrow County Court on July 8 as the result of a fall sustained while showing someone to a seat during a performance. The mishap occurred on March 28, when, it was stated, she caught her heel in a step and fell downstairs, knocking her right forearm. After resting she resumed work, but on April 24 her arm gave trouble, and she had to go to hospital. Patron's Claim Fails. — An action which was characterised by the judge as "an ingenious experiment in extending the law " failed at Birkenhead on September 2. Miss Estelle Urding sued S.M. Super Cinemas, Ltd., for the value of a handbag and contents, valued at £40. Miss Urding, it was stated, placed her handbag on a window ledge in the toilet immediately below a broken window, and someone put a hand through the window and removed the handbag. Her case was that by not keeping the window repaired the defendant company was guilty of contributory neglect,