Against the Law

by Peter Wildeblood; Max Lerner

  I began to think. I did not believe that I deserved to be spat at; but, if people could be so wrong about me, was it not also possible that I had wrong ideas about other people? Mr. Roberts, for example; I began to think about Mr. Roberts.

  So far, in this account of the trial, I have presented Mr. Roberts as something of a grotesque, which is how he appeared to me at the time. My feelings towards him now began to change. I remembered how he had passionately defended Rupert Croft-Cooke. Had he been sincere in that trial, or in this? Or in both? Or in neither?

  I had seen a great deal of barristers by now. I realised that their profession was closely akin to that of actors, and that insincerity was the stock-in-trade of most of them. But how could they be sincere, alternating as they did between Crown and defence, knowing the tricks of both sides? It would be as unreasonable to expect sincerity from a prostitute. Year in, year out, these men stood, now on one side, now on the other, pleading the cause of Crown and criminal with equal vehemence. At the end of a long career at the Bar they must have become like stones, washed clean of all sympathy, all hope for humanity, all regard for truth—and it was then, by a singular stroke of irony, that they were made into judges.

  No, I could not hate Mr. Roberts, because I did not know him. I only knew what he had said in court, and I could not hate him for that because he probably believed it no more than I did. He was probably not even a snob. I had met his wife, and she had been a kindly, matey soul who would be the last person in the world to rant about social superiorities. As a matter of fact she had bought me several gins, to cheer me up. Mr. Roberts, I decided, was as much a victim of hypocrisy as I was myself. It was his job to secure a conviction under a law of which, for all I knew, he disapproved as strongly as myself. He was doing his job. If he did it well, I would go to prison.

  I was too tired to think about prison. I reflected that warders were probably only people, like anybody else, and went to sleep.

  The seventh day began with the closing speech of Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall, in defence of Lord Montagu. Peter Rawlinson’s speech had been fiery and moving, like the speech of a man defending the honour of a friend. Fearnley-Whittingstall’s was delivered more coldly, more oratorically, but it was obvious that he, too, felt strongly about the victimisation of his client. He spoke first of the Boy Scout case, in which he had also defended Edward.

  He reminded the jury that Edward had already been awaiting a re-trial when he was arrested on January 9th—‘long before you knew that you would be jurymen in the case. I wonder how many of you said to yourself: “How on earth can that wretched man get an unprejudiced trial now?”

  ‘My learned friend has said several times during the course of this case: “There is no reason, is there, Lord Montagu, why Lord Montagu should be treated any differently from Bill Sykes?” And you remember Lord Montagu’s reply: “I hope not”.

  ‘I do not know and cannot think of any occasion when a situation equal to the one which you are faced with has happened before—that a 20-months-old association has been made the subject-matter of a trial intervening between the trial in December and the other trial.’

  Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall argued that there was no reason to suppose that Lord Montagu knew that I was an invert, as I now admitted. ‘That is the kind of thing that a person keeps closely to himself, and does not tell his intimate friends.

  ‘Mr. Roberts has said that Wildeblood was obviously a homosexual. That is in conflict with the evidence; it is in conflict with Wildeblood’s career, which has been a highly successful one.

  ‘Do you suppose that in a place like Fleet Street, if Wildeblood was an obvious homosexual, as Mr. Roberts has held him out to be, it would not have gained currency, gossip, rumour, and carried itself to the ears of Wildeblood’s superiors upon the paper?’

  This was, of course, perfectly true. I had always managed to keep my tendencies hidden from all my friends in Fleet Street; not so much because I was ashamed of them, but because they were none of their business.

  Then Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall turned to the question of the ‘lavish hospitality’. ‘Lavish hospitality! It looks fine, does it not, when you get a peer and a successful journalist, to talk about lavish hospitality. Not quite so fine when you examine the facts. From the point of view of Lord Montagu, a loaf of bread and some champagne cider. From the point of view of Wildeblood, eggs for an omelette and a few slices of salami. Lavish hospitality!’

  Mr. Hylton-Foster, making his closing speech on behalf of Michael Pitt-Rivers, was even more jocose. ‘Foreigners think we are a nation of snobs,’ he remarked. ‘Well, I think we are. But you must have got some pretty basic snobbery in this case. It is now said that because on a sunshiny holiday, with chaps in beach clothes down in a beach hut, in those circumstances when they are all calling one another by their Christian names, you let them call you by your Christian name, that is a badge of some indecent association. Really! Did ever snobbery put forward a more greasy exterior than that by the prosecution in this case?’

  Mr. Hylton-Foster said it had been suggested that the airmen were lying to save their own skin. He did not know whether this was true; he could only point out that Reynolds had saved his.

  On the night before, the Press men had been laying odds of eleven to two that we should be acquitted. The odds must have slumped heavily after they had heard the first half of the judge’s summing-up.

  Mr. Justice Ormerod leaned forward from his throne and spoke to the jury in a voice so rapid and low that we, at the other end of the court, could scarcely hear it. He warned them of the dangers of accepting the evidence of accomplices, but remarked, very truly, that ‘it would be extremely difficult to launch a prosecution in a case of this kind if it were not possible to obtain evidence of this kind’.

  He repeated the case for the prosecution, putting it rather better, I thought, than Mr. Roberts. Then he considered the criticisms which had been made of the police.

  ‘You will remember in this case,’ said the judge, ‘that the police have their duty to do. Of course you are not concerned with the question, which may or may not be a difficult question of law, as to whether the police had any right to search the flat of Lord Montagu or the flat of Major Pitt-Rivers in London. You may well understand that the police were anxious to effect simultaneous arrests of these three men; anxious, perhaps, that they could do that in order that they could search the premises, in case any relevant documents were destroyed or got rid of in one way or another; and you may think it reasonable that the police should act as they did, arrest these men early in the morning, and at the same time search their premises, and, when they were satisfied the three men had been arrested, allow these men to get in touch with their solicitors....’

  The jury, of course, did not know that I had been prevented from seeing my solicitor for five hours after my arrest. Mr. Justice Ormerod did.

  That evening I was very depressed. Arthur Prothero said: ‘Naturally, it sounded bad. He was just re-stating the prosecution case. Tomorrow he’ll put the defence case, and the jury will have it fresh in their minds when they retire.’ I was not convinced. ‘He sounded as though his heart was in it,’ I said.

  We went to a hotel to have a drink with some of the reporters. They asked whether there would be a party if we were acquitted.

  ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I don’t want any of your corny stories.’

  ‘What corny stories, Pete?’

  ‘I don’t want to wake up in prison on Thursday morning and read a story about a “little grey-haired bottle of champagne sat waiting last night....”’

  ‘Oh, you aren’t going to prison. We’ll help you to drink the champagne.’

  ‘I’ll settle for champagne cider.’

  ‘No, really, what will you do? If everything goes all right, I mean?’

  ‘Go to Winchester Cathedral and get down on my knees.’ I was quite serious about it.

  ‘That’ll make a smashing picture. Can I have it exclusive?’
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  I saw Superintendent Smith on the other side of the bar. I walked over and bought him a gin and tonic. ‘I hope they won’t arrest you for that burglary at my house,’ I said.

  Smith grinned. ‘Why should they?’

  ‘Your finger-prints are all over everything. Cheers.’

  ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  I reflected that, under different circumstances, I might have made a friend of Smith. He reminded me of Bob Fabian, the Scotland Yard detective now retired, with whom I had dined a few nights before the trial began. Fabian, too, had wished me luck. How ridiculous it all was! Tomorrow the jury would give their verdict. It was quite possible that I would go to prison. And what would that prove? Officially, that I was an enemy of Society, a criminal. The newspapers would brand me as such; it was their duty. Smith would probably be promoted for his part in tracking me down. Roberts would be congratulated by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Reynolds and McNally would go free. It was like a game of consequences. And the world said....

  One of the photographers, hidden behind the bar, was snapping me with a Leica. A reporter was asking whether I had thought of writing my life story for the Sunday papers. I thought it was time to go to bed.

  In the morning, Wednesday morning, March 24th, I packed the clothes I was not wearing and handed them, together with the borrowed underpants, to Arthur Prothero. I arranged that either he or one of the reporters, Peter Drake of the Daily Express, should telephone the verdict to my parents.

  The judge continued his summing-up. He put forward the case for the defence, but as each point arose he reminded the jury of the Crown allegations. He had obviously been horrified by my admission that I was a sexual invert, and annoyed by the criticism of the police; his whole exposition was subtly coloured by these two considerations. My letters were ‘nauseating’. The judge remarked, of one passage: ‘Of course, that is an extraordinary phrase for one man to write to another; but you will remember that it is a letter written from a man who is admittedly homosexual to a man who, whether Wildeblood knew it at the time, or not, we now know was a homosexual too, and you will have to consider the letter of course in relation to those circumstances.’

  I remembered my own words: ‘I think we ought to agree on some kind of vocabulary. If I say somebody is a homosexual I am not necessarily implying that they indulge in criminal actions.’

  I remembered the words of the Church of England report: ‘It should be recognised that homosexual love is not always at a genital level. The homosexual is capable of a virtuous love as clean, as decent and as beautiful as one who is normally sexed.’

  At five minutes past twelve the jury retired to consider their verdict.

  Arthur Prothero came down to the cells. ‘I’m sorry, Peter,’ he said. ‘We’ve had it. You’ve got to face that now.’

  ‘Are there any grounds for appeal?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not. There were no actual misdirections in law.’

  ‘I see.’

  We had lunch, as usual, in the cells. Afterwards I went and looked for one of the warders, to whom I had spoken several times. I found him sitting on a bench in the corridor, drinking a cup of tea.

  ‘My solicitor thinks I’ve had it,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t say that yet. You never know, with juries.’

  ‘I know with this one. What’s prison like?’

  He laughed. ‘Not too bad; if you’ve been in the forces you’ll know what to expect.’

  ‘I suppose the food’s pretty awful.’

  ‘Well, it’s plain, of course, but there’s plenty of it. Most chaps put on a bit of weight inside, as a matter of fact. It’s probably the starch. Anyhow, let’s hope you don’t find out.’

  I noticed that he had stopped calling me ‘Sir’. He had always done so, up to now. I supposed that I should be calling him ‘Sir’, tomorrow.

  It was half-past two. Another case had begun. The accused man was a round-faced Irishman, charged with murder. I could hear the machine of justice grinding away as we sat, hour after hour, waiting for the verdict. I had no doubt what it would be. The judge had explained the probabilities clearly enough: anybody who admitted to being a homosexual was so vile, so obscene that the chances were that he was a criminal as well. I waited with a dull curiosity for his sentence. He could put me in prison for 15 years, if he felt so disposed.

  At last—it was half-past four—the jury came back. The other case was brusquely suspended, and Montagu, Pitt-Rivers and I were hustled up the stairs and into the dock for the last time.

  I heard the foreman of the jury say: ‘Guilty.... Guilty.... Guilty.... Not Guilty.’ They had found me not guilty of one of the offences which McNally had alleged; they had decided that the principal witness for the Crown was lying; but what did it matter? ‘Guilty.... Guilty.... Guilty....’ There’s no smoke without fire.

  We had one more witness. Dr Jack Hobson, a psychiatrist at the Middlesex Hospital whom I had seen for a week before the trial, told the judge that he believed I had suicidal tendencies as well as being sexually abnormal. He believed my homosexuality could be cured, but it would be more difficult to do this if I was sent to prison.

  Peter Rawlinson pleaded with the judge. ‘Wildeblood’s is a medical problem,’ he said, ‘a problem which must be solved, if a man as worthwhile as he is is not to be thrown away on the rubbish-heap of humanity.’ He said that I had been convicted on the evidence of rotten, worthless, miserable creatures. I had not corrupted them—I had never corrupted anybody. ‘Perhaps the greatest prerogative of a judge is that of mercy,’ he declared. ‘If ever a man needed your mercy, that man is Peter Wildeblood.’

  After the other two counsel for the defence had spoken, the judge asked us if we had anything to say.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  The judge straightened his back. ‘You have all three been found guilty of serious offences,’ he said. ‘You, Montagu, of less serious offences than the other two. I have paid the greatest attention to everything that has been said on your behalf, and particular attention, Wildeblood, to the difficulties which you have, no doubt, encountered.

  ‘But, of course, it is quite impossible for these offences to be passed over. I am dealing with you in the most lenient way that I possibly can. You, Wildeblood, will go to prison for 18 months; you, Montagu, for 12 months; and you, Pitt-Rivers, for 18 months.’

  The warders stepped forward and hurried us down the stairs. I just had time for a last look at McNally, sitting between Superintendent Jones and another policeman. He was staring straight ahead. I took a deep breath, as though I were diving.

  The warder to whom I had spoken before was waiting for me. ‘You’ll only do 12 months, if you behave yourself,’ he told me, ‘and of course you will. Just remember: there’s always somebody else who’s worse off than you.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir,’ I said.

  Peter Drake telephoned my mother and told her the news. He read her a message which I had written earlier that afternoon. ‘The jury are out now,’ I had said. ‘Whatever they decide, I do not want you to be ashamed of anything I have done. Be glad, rather, that at last a little light has been cast on this dark territory in which, through no fault of their own, many thousands of other men are condemned to live, in loneliness and fear.’

  The reporters agreed that they would not trouble my mother any further. She released a statement to the Press: ‘I have never lost faith in my son. The sentence does not change anything.’ Then she sat down and wept.

  Part Three

  We remained in the cells beneath the court room for about three hours. I could not tell exactly how long it was, because I had given my watch, with my fountain-pen and loose change, to a friend for safe keeping. The warders made tea on a gas ring, and we stood around drinking it, not finding much to say. I felt, suddenly, very tired; after the months of suspense, the days of the trial, the hours of waiting for the verdic
t, it was all over. I was going to prison. I was not frightened by the prospect, nor even curious about it any longer. I merely wanted to go there as soon as possible, and get some sleep.

  At last, when it had grown quite dark, the order came for us to be moved to Winchester Prison. One of the warders, speaking stiffly, as though he was reading from a book, said: ‘You will not be submitted to the indignity of wearing handcuffs; just carry on up the stairs.’ I had not thought of handcuffs. I wondered how they would feel, and look. There was something extraordinarily grotesque about the idea, until I remembered that I was now a criminal.

  Upstairs in the courtyard, outside the great stone door, stood a stately and antique Rolls-Royce which was to convey us to prison. There was a small group of people surrounding the car, mostly women. I remembered the woman who had spat at me, a few days before, but I no longer cared. They were silent as the warders opened the doors of the car. Then one of the women said, in a loud, toneless voice: ‘Which is Lord Montagu? Ah, there he is!’ I thought: Please, don’t let them do any more to him. They’ve had their pound of flesh. And then the crowd began to press round us, shouting. It was some moments before I realised that they were not shouting insults, but words of encouragement. They tried to pat us on the back and told us to ‘keep smiling’, and when the doors were shut they went on talking through the windows and gave the thumbs-up sign and clapped their hands.

  I did not know, then, that this was why we had been kept waiting so long in the cells. Immediately after the verdict a crowd of about 200 had gathered outside, and the authorities were afraid there would be a demonstration. There was, in fact—but not of the kind which they had anticipated.

  Arthur Prothero, when he had said goodbye to me downstairs, had gone back into the court room to collect his documents. He told me later that when he had been there a few minutes he had heard a rising chorus of boos and jeers outside, which had upset him so much that he ran to the door. He found, however, that the shouting was not directed at us, as he had feared, but at the two prosecution witnesses and their police escort. McNally and Reynolds, white and weeping, were being bundled into the back of a police car, where they lay on the floor, their heads covered by mackintoshes. The crowd yelled, hissed and beat on the windows of the car with umbrellas and rolled-up newspapers. The British public, in whose name all this had been done, was showing what it thought of the case. One of the women who had been in that crowd wrote a description of the scene to my mother, asking whether it would be possible for her to send me a parcel of cigarettes and food at the prison.