Adolph Beck case
Encyclopedia
The Adolf Beck case was a notorious incidence of wrongful conviction by mistaken identity
, brought about by unreliable methods of identification, erroneous (though probably sincere) eyewitness testimony, and a rush to convict the accused. As one of the most famous causes célèbres
of its time, the case led to the creation of the English Court of Criminal Appeal
in 1907.
in 1841, and educated as a chemist. However, he went to sea soon afterwards and moved to England
in 1865, working as a clerk to a shipping broker. In 1868, he moved to South America, where he made a living for a while as a public singer, then became a shipbroker and also engaged in buying and selling houses. He soon amassed a considerable amount of savings, at one time earning £8,000 as commission for a sale of a Spanish concession in the Galapagos Islands
, finally returning to England in 1885, where he engaged in various financial schemes.
He invested part of his savings in a copper
mine in Norway. Unfortunately the mine did not turn a profit, despite his efforts to make it, pouring in more and more money until he had to put the mine to sale; however, there were no takers and he was reduced to near-poverty. Beck was in debt to his hotel in Covent Garden
, had borrowed money from his secretary, and was chronically short of money. In spite of his ingratiating nature, his moneymaking schemes had left acrimony and unhappy creditors.
Nevertheless, he tried to keep up appearances by dressing in a frock coat
and top hat
whenever he went out, even though he would eventually wear them out to the point that they became threadbare.
her three weeks earlier.
The policeman took them both to the nearest police station, where the woman identified herself as Ottilie Meissonier, unmarried, and a language teacher. According to Meissonier, she had been walking down Victoria Street toward a flower show when Beck allegedly approached her, tipping his hat and asking if she was Lady Everton. She replied in the negative, but she was impressed by his gentlemanly manner and they struck up a conversation. He introduced himself as "Lord Willoughby" and advised her that the flower show was not worth visiting. He said that he knew horticulture
because he had extensive enough gardens on his Lincolnshire
estate to require that he employ six gardeners. Meissonier mentioned that she grew chrysanthemums, whereupon he asked whether he might see them and she invited him to tea the following day.
Before the afternoon was over, he had invited her to go to the French Riviera
on his yacht
. However, he insisted upon providing her with an elegant wardrobe for the voyage, and Meissonier agreed. He wrote out a list for her and made out a cheque for £40 to cover her purchases. Then he examined her wristwatch and rings, and asked her to let him have them so he could match their sizes and replace them with more valuable pieces.
After he left she discovered that a second watch was missing. Suspicious, she hurried to the bank to cash the cheque, only to find that it was worthless. She had been swindled, and she swore that it was Adolf Beck who had done it. He was promptly arrested.
The inspector who was assigned to the case learned that in the past two years twenty-two women had been defrauded by a gray-haired man who called himself "Lord Wilton de Willoughby" and used basically the same modus operandi
as Beck's accuser had described. These women were asked to view a lineup
that included Beck, along with ten or fifteen men who had been selected randomly from the street. Because he was the only one with gray hair and moustache
, he was quickly identified by the women as the man who had taken their clothes and jewellery
.
Despite Beck's claims of innocence, he was charged with ten misdemeanours and four felonies
. The felony charges were based on presumed prior convictions in 1877, when a man named John Smith had been sentenced to five years for swindling unattached women by using the name Lord Willoughby, writing worthless cheques, and taking their jewelry. He had disappeared after his release and it was assumed that Beck and Smith were one and the same. Descriptions of John Smith from prison files were never compared with the current appearance of Adolph Beck. At Beck's committal hearing in late 1895, one of the policemen who had arrested Smith eighteen years before was called to testify. PC Elliss Spurrell gave his account as follows:
Beck protested and insisted that he could bring witnesses from South America to prove that he was there in 1877.
in the Old Bailey
. The Crown was represented by Horace Edmund Avory
, assisted by Guy Stephenson, while the defense was headed by an experienced barrister
, Charles F. Gill, assisted by Percival Clarke. The Common Serjeant
was Sir Forrest Fulton
, who, as a prosecutor
, had been responsible for sending John Smith to prison in 1877.
The defense strategy was simple: mistaken identity
. If they could prove that Beck was in South America at the time when John Smith was committing those crimes and went to prison for them, it would refute the assumption that Adolph Beck was John Smith, as alleged.
A handwriting expert
named Thomas H. Gurrin compared the lists of clothing Smith had given his victims in 1877 to those written in 1894-1895, as well as to samples of Beck's handwriting. Gill thought that he would have his chance to prove the mistaken identity when he cross-examined
Gurrin. If Gurrin testified in court, as he had said previously, that the writing of the 1877 and 1894-95 swindlers were identical, Gill could bring witnesses that would prove that Beck was in Buenos Aires
in 1877. But Avory, foreseeing this tactic, asked the witness
only about the later lists. Gurrin said that these had been written by Beck with a "disguised hand".
Gill thereupon asked Justice Fulton's permission to question Gurrin about the 1877 lists, but under British procedures earlier convictions of a man cannot be mentioned in court until the jury
had given its verdict. Gill protested that the past was vital to his defense, in order to prove that Beck could not have been Smith, but Fulton still would not allow questions about the 1877 case.
Avory did not want to call Elliss Spurrell to the stand to give evidence because it would have opened discussion of the past conviction, thereby allowing Gill the opportunity to cast doubt on Beck's guilt. Without Spurrell's testimony
, Avory could still try Beck for the misdemeanour charges, which did not require proof of prior conviction. He chose not to proceed with the felony charges despite the fact the prosecution was based wholly on the unstated premise that Adolph Beck and John Smith were the same person.
Avory brought Beck's alleged victims into court and one after another they pointed out Beck as the swindler. There were, however, occasional moments of doubt. One mentioned that the swindler talked differently from Beck, peppering his speech with "Yankee" slang
. Ottilie Meissonier remembered that the swindler had a scar
on the right side of his neck, but was otherwise convinced that it was Beck. Another testified that his mustache was longer, and waxed. But these went unheeded by the jury. The jury also did not question how the original police lineup
had been prejudiced against Beck.
. In prison he was given John Smith's old prison number, D 523, with the letter W added, indicating a repeat convict.
England did not yet have a court of criminal appeal, but from 1896 to 1901 Beck's solicitor
presented ten petitions for re-examination of his case. His requests to see the prison's description of John Smith were repeatedly denied. However, in May 1898 a member of the Home Office
looked at the Smith file and saw that Smith was Jewish
and thus had been circumcised, while Beck was not. The Home Office asked Sir Forrest Fulton of his opinion of this new evidence. Fulton wrote a minute dated May 13 in which he acknowledged that Smith and Beck could not be the same person, but he added that even if Beck was not Smith, he was still the imposter of 1895, viewing the South American alibi
"with great suspicion." As a result the letter W was removed from Beck's prison number, but nothing else was done regarding the case.
In the meantime, while Beck was in prison, G.R. Sims, a journalist
with the Daily Mail
, who knew Beck since the return of the latter to England in 1885, heard about the details of the case. He was disturbed by the fact that Beck was tried under the assumption that Beck and Smith were the same person, yet no evidence to support that assumption was allowed by Justice Fulton. He wrote about this in the Daily Mail and called for a review of the case. Slowly, public opinion was swayed to the view that Beck's conviction was unjust; one of Beck's more famous supporters was Arthur Conan Doyle
. Adolph Beck himself joined the cause when he was paroled
in July 1901 for good behaviour, but despite his efforts to prove his innocence, fate was against him.
where Beck took his lunch. She did not recognize him but the inspector was undeterred by the woman's uncertainty and set a trap for him.
On 15 April 1904, as Beck left his flat
, Scott ran up to him and accused him of defrauding her of her jewelry. Beck was horrified and denied the charge. Scott repeated her accusations and told him that someone was waiting to arrest him. He ran away in panic, but was caught immediately by the waiting police inspector, who arrested him at once. Beck's panicked flight reinforced the inspector's assumption regarding his guilt.
He was again put on trial on 27 June at the Old Bailey before Sir William Grantham. Five women identified him and, based on this positive identification, he was found guilty by the jury. The judge, however, was dissatisfied about the case and expressed some doubts regarding it. Despite assurances from the Home Office and the police of Beck's guilt, he decided to postponed sentencing
. Ten days later the case was solved once and for all.
police station on July 7, Inspector John Kane of the Criminal Investigation Department
was told of the arrest of a man who had tried to swindle some rings from a pair of unemployed actresses that afternoon and apprehended at a pawnshop. The detective was familiar with the Beck case, having been present at Beck's two trials and asked for details. The details fitted the usual pattern but the alleged culprit, Adolph Beck, was already in jail, awaiting sentencing.
The inspector went to the new prisoner's cell. It held a grey-haired man, approximately of Beck's height, with certain features which made him resemble Beck. However, Beck was younger and frailer in build, and this man had a scar on the right side of his neck, as Ottilie Meissoner remembered. The prisoner had given his name as William Thomas but the inspector, convinced that he was John Smith, informed Scotland Yard
. Three of the five women who identified Beck in his second trial were brought in to confront Thomas and they quickly identified him as the swindler (the other two had gone abroad and thus were not present). Other women were brought in as well who also admitted their error in identifying Beck. When the man who had been John Smith's landlord
in 1877 identified Thomas as his former tenant, the prisoner confessed his crimes.
"William Thomas" turned out to be as much an alias
as "John Smith" had been, and he had two aliases as well, "William Wyatt" and "William Weiss". It was learned that his real name was Wilhelm Meyer, who was born in Vienna and had graduated from the University of Vienna
. He studied leprosy
in the Hawaiian Islands
under Father Joseph Damien
. He later became surgeon
to the King of Hawaii and was engaged in growing coffee
, and in various other businesses in the United States
, even setting up practice as a physician
in Adelaide before moving to London. Apparently he fell upon hard times when he stayed there, and turned to preying on women through fraud. When Beck was sent to prison in his place, Meyer had gone back to the United States and did not come back until 1903, apparently when he thought Beck had served out his sentence, and resumed his swindling until he was finally arrested. When brought to trial on 15 September, Wilhelm Meyer pled guilty to those offences.
was awarded £2,000, later raised to £5,000 due to public clamour, again due to G.R. Sims (about £300,000 today), but those who were responsible were the subject of public indignation.
Eventually a Committee of Inquiry was established, headed by the noted jurist and Master of the Rolls
Sir Richard Henn Collins. It heard evidence from all those involved in the case, including Horace Avory and Sir Forrest Fulton. In its report, it concluded that Adolph Beck should not have been convicted in the first place due to the many errors made by the prosecution in presenting its case. The Committee also chastised Judge Fulton in his conduct on the case, as he should have given consideration to the 1877 case, more so because of his involvement with the 1877 case, which served to prejudice the proceedings against Beck. Furthermore, it criticized the Home Office for its indifference in acting on the case despite the fact that it had known since 1898 that Beck and Smith were not the same man. Instead, it sought to preserve the credibility of the judiciary rather than admit or correct its mistakes. It also stated that the omission of the prison authorities to state the fact of Smith's circumcision in the records of 1877 and 1881 was the primary cause of the miscarriage of justice.
As a direct result of the case, important reforms resulted, including the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal. The case is still cited by judges in Commonwealth countries as a glaring example of how inaccurate eyewitness identification
can be, and the extreme care with which juries must regard evidence of this kind. As for Adolf Beck, his exoneration brought him little consolation. He died a broken man of pleurisy
and bronchitis
in Middlesex Hospital
on 7 December 1909.
Mistaken identity
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was...
, brought about by unreliable methods of identification, erroneous (though probably sincere) eyewitness testimony, and a rush to convict the accused. As one of the most famous causes célèbres
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
of its time, the case led to the creation of the English Court of Criminal Appeal
Court of Criminal Appeal
The Court of Criminal Appeal is the name of existing courts of Scotland and Ireland, and an historic court in England and Wales.- Ireland :See Court of Criminal Appeal ...
in 1907.
Biographical background
Adolf Beck was born in NorwayNorway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
in 1841, and educated as a chemist. However, he went to sea soon afterwards and moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1865, working as a clerk to a shipping broker. In 1868, he moved to South America, where he made a living for a while as a public singer, then became a shipbroker and also engaged in buying and selling houses. He soon amassed a considerable amount of savings, at one time earning £8,000 as commission for a sale of a Spanish concession in the Galapagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
, finally returning to England in 1885, where he engaged in various financial schemes.
He invested part of his savings in a copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
mine in Norway. Unfortunately the mine did not turn a profit, despite his efforts to make it, pouring in more and more money until he had to put the mine to sale; however, there were no takers and he was reduced to near-poverty. Beck was in debt to his hotel in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, had borrowed money from his secretary, and was chronically short of money. In spite of his ingratiating nature, his moneymaking schemes had left acrimony and unhappy creditors.
Nevertheless, he tried to keep up appearances by dressing in a frock coat
Frock coat
A frock coat is a man's coat characterised by knee-length skirts all around the base, popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The double-breasted style is sometimes called a Prince Albert . The frock coat is a fitted, long-sleeved coat with a centre vent at the back, and some features...
and top hat
Top hat
A top hat, beaver hat, high hat silk hat, cylinder hat, chimney pot hat or stove pipe hat is a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, predominantly worn from the latter part of the 18th to the middle of the 20th century...
whenever he went out, even though he would eventually wear them out to the point that they became threadbare.
Arrest
On 16 December 1895, Beck was stepping out the door of 135 (or 139, according to at least one account) Victoria Street, when a woman blocked his way. She accused him of having tricked her out of two watches and several rings. Beck brushed her aside and crossed the road. When the woman followed, he complained to a policeman that he was being followed by a prostitute who had accosted him. The woman strongly demanded his arrest, accusing him of having swindledFraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
her three weeks earlier.
The policeman took them both to the nearest police station, where the woman identified herself as Ottilie Meissonier, unmarried, and a language teacher. According to Meissonier, she had been walking down Victoria Street toward a flower show when Beck allegedly approached her, tipping his hat and asking if she was Lady Everton. She replied in the negative, but she was impressed by his gentlemanly manner and they struck up a conversation. He introduced himself as "Lord Willoughby" and advised her that the flower show was not worth visiting. He said that he knew horticulture
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
because he had extensive enough gardens on his Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
estate to require that he employ six gardeners. Meissonier mentioned that she grew chrysanthemums, whereupon he asked whether he might see them and she invited him to tea the following day.
Before the afternoon was over, he had invited her to go to the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
on his yacht
Yacht
A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...
. However, he insisted upon providing her with an elegant wardrobe for the voyage, and Meissonier agreed. He wrote out a list for her and made out a cheque for £40 to cover her purchases. Then he examined her wristwatch and rings, and asked her to let him have them so he could match their sizes and replace them with more valuable pieces.
After he left she discovered that a second watch was missing. Suspicious, she hurried to the bank to cash the cheque, only to find that it was worthless. She had been swindled, and she swore that it was Adolf Beck who had done it. He was promptly arrested.
The inspector who was assigned to the case learned that in the past two years twenty-two women had been defrauded by a gray-haired man who called himself "Lord Wilton de Willoughby" and used basically the same modus operandi
Modus operandi
Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...
as Beck's accuser had described. These women were asked to view a lineup
Police lineup
A police lineup or identity parade is a process by which a crime victim or witness's putative identification of a suspect is confirmed to a level that can count as evidence at trial....
that included Beck, along with ten or fifteen men who had been selected randomly from the street. Because he was the only one with gray hair and moustache
Moustache
A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair style grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.-Etymology:...
, he was quickly identified by the women as the man who had taken their clothes and jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
.
Despite Beck's claims of innocence, he was charged with ten misdemeanours and four felonies
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
. The felony charges were based on presumed prior convictions in 1877, when a man named John Smith had been sentenced to five years for swindling unattached women by using the name Lord Willoughby, writing worthless cheques, and taking their jewelry. He had disappeared after his release and it was assumed that Beck and Smith were one and the same. Descriptions of John Smith from prison files were never compared with the current appearance of Adolph Beck. At Beck's committal hearing in late 1895, one of the policemen who had arrested Smith eighteen years before was called to testify. PC Elliss Spurrell gave his account as follows:
- "In 1877 I was in the Metropolitan PoliceMetropolitan policeMetropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
Reserve. On May 7, 1877 I was present at the Central Criminal CourtOld BaileyThe Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
where the prisoner in the name of John Smith was convicted of feloniously stealing ear-rings and a ring and eleven shillingShillingThe shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s of Louisa Leonard and was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. I produce the certificate of that conviction. The prisoner is the man.
- "There is no doubt whatever — I know quite well what is at stake on my answer and I say without doubt he is the man."
Beck protested and insisted that he could bring witnesses from South America to prove that he was there in 1877.
The Trial
On March 3, 1896, Beck was brought to trialTrial
A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...
in the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
. The Crown was represented by Horace Edmund Avory
Horace Avory
Sir Horace Edmund Avory was an English criminal lawyer, jurist and Privy Counsellor.-Biography:He was the son of Henry Avory, clerk of the Central Criminal Court. He was educated at King's College London, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was captain of boats and took the degree of...
, assisted by Guy Stephenson, while the defense was headed by an experienced barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, Charles F. Gill, assisted by Percival Clarke. The Common Serjeant
Serjeant-at-law
The Serjeants-at-Law was an order of barristers at the English bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law , or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France prior to the Norman Conquest...
was Sir Forrest Fulton
Forrest Fulton
Sir Forrest Fulton was a British judge and Conservative politician.-Early life:Born in Ostend, Belgium, he was the youngest son of Lieutenant-Colonel James Fuller Fulton and his wife, Fanny née Jessopp....
, who, as a prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
, had been responsible for sending John Smith to prison in 1877.
The defense strategy was simple: mistaken identity
Mistaken identity
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was...
. If they could prove that Beck was in South America at the time when John Smith was committing those crimes and went to prison for them, it would refute the assumption that Adolph Beck was John Smith, as alleged.
A handwriting expert
Questioned document examination
Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...
named Thomas H. Gurrin compared the lists of clothing Smith had given his victims in 1877 to those written in 1894-1895, as well as to samples of Beck's handwriting. Gill thought that he would have his chance to prove the mistaken identity when he cross-examined
Cross-examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a redirect .- Variations by Jurisdiction :In...
Gurrin. If Gurrin testified in court, as he had said previously, that the writing of the 1877 and 1894-95 swindlers were identical, Gill could bring witnesses that would prove that Beck was in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
in 1877. But Avory, foreseeing this tactic, asked the witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
only about the later lists. Gurrin said that these had been written by Beck with a "disguised hand".
Gill thereupon asked Justice Fulton's permission to question Gurrin about the 1877 lists, but under British procedures earlier convictions of a man cannot be mentioned in court until the jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
had given its verdict. Gill protested that the past was vital to his defense, in order to prove that Beck could not have been Smith, but Fulton still would not allow questions about the 1877 case.
Avory did not want to call Elliss Spurrell to the stand to give evidence because it would have opened discussion of the past conviction, thereby allowing Gill the opportunity to cast doubt on Beck's guilt. Without Spurrell's testimony
Testimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. All testimonies should be well thought out and truthful. It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on a Bible when taking an oath...
, Avory could still try Beck for the misdemeanour charges, which did not require proof of prior conviction. He chose not to proceed with the felony charges despite the fact the prosecution was based wholly on the unstated premise that Adolph Beck and John Smith were the same person.
Avory brought Beck's alleged victims into court and one after another they pointed out Beck as the swindler. There were, however, occasional moments of doubt. One mentioned that the swindler talked differently from Beck, peppering his speech with "Yankee" slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
. Ottilie Meissonier remembered that the swindler had a scar
Scar
Scars are areas of fibrous tissue that replace normal skin after injury. A scar results from the biological process of wound repair in the skin and other tissues of the body. Thus, scarring is a natural part of the healing process. With the exception of very minor lesions, every wound results in...
on the right side of his neck, but was otherwise convinced that it was Beck. Another testified that his mustache was longer, and waxed. But these went unheeded by the jury. The jury also did not question how the original police lineup
Police lineup
A police lineup or identity parade is a process by which a crime victim or witness's putative identification of a suspect is confirmed to a level that can count as evidence at trial....
had been prejudiced against Beck.
Conviction and doubts
On 5 March 1896, Adolf Beck was found guilty and, despite maintaining his innocence throughout, was sentenced to seven years of penal servitude at Portland Convict Prison on the Isle of PortlandIsle of Portland
The Isle of Portland is a limestone tied island, long by wide, in the English Channel. Portland is south of the resort of Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A tombolo over which runs the A354 road connects it to Chesil Beach and the mainland. Portland and...
. In prison he was given John Smith's old prison number, D 523, with the letter W added, indicating a repeat convict.
England did not yet have a court of criminal appeal, but from 1896 to 1901 Beck's solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
presented ten petitions for re-examination of his case. His requests to see the prison's description of John Smith were repeatedly denied. However, in May 1898 a member of the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
looked at the Smith file and saw that Smith was Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and thus had been circumcised, while Beck was not. The Home Office asked Sir Forrest Fulton of his opinion of this new evidence. Fulton wrote a minute dated May 13 in which he acknowledged that Smith and Beck could not be the same person, but he added that even if Beck was not Smith, he was still the imposter of 1895, viewing the South American alibi
Alibi
Alibi is a 1929 American crime film directed by Roland West. The screenplay was written by West and C. Gardner Sullivan, who adapted the 1927 Broadway stage play, Nightstick, written by Elaine Sterne Carrington, J.C...
"with great suspicion." As a result the letter W was removed from Beck's prison number, but nothing else was done regarding the case.
In the meantime, while Beck was in prison, G.R. Sims, a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
with the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, who knew Beck since the return of the latter to England in 1885, heard about the details of the case. He was disturbed by the fact that Beck was tried under the assumption that Beck and Smith were the same person, yet no evidence to support that assumption was allowed by Justice Fulton. He wrote about this in the Daily Mail and called for a review of the case. Slowly, public opinion was swayed to the view that Beck's conviction was unjust; one of Beck's more famous supporters was Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
. Adolph Beck himself joined the cause when he was paroled
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
in July 1901 for good behaviour, but despite his efforts to prove his innocence, fate was against him.
Second arrest and conviction
On 22 March 1904, a servant by the name of Paulina Scott filed a complaint that a grey-haired, distinguished looking man had accosted her on the street, paid compliments to her and then stolen her jewellery. The inspector who took the complaint was familiar with Beck's case and assumed he must be the culprit, so he sent Scott to the restaurantRestaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
where Beck took his lunch. She did not recognize him but the inspector was undeterred by the woman's uncertainty and set a trap for him.
On 15 April 1904, as Beck left his flat
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
, Scott ran up to him and accused him of defrauding her of her jewelry. Beck was horrified and denied the charge. Scott repeated her accusations and told him that someone was waiting to arrest him. He ran away in panic, but was caught immediately by the waiting police inspector, who arrested him at once. Beck's panicked flight reinforced the inspector's assumption regarding his guilt.
He was again put on trial on 27 June at the Old Bailey before Sir William Grantham. Five women identified him and, based on this positive identification, he was found guilty by the jury. The judge, however, was dissatisfied about the case and expressed some doubts regarding it. Despite assurances from the Home Office and the police of Beck's guilt, he decided to postponed sentencing
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
. Ten days later the case was solved once and for all.
The truth about John Smith
On a routine visit to the Tottenham Court RoadTottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is a major road in central London, United Kingdom, running from St Giles Circus north to Euston Road, near the border of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile...
police station on July 7, Inspector John Kane of the Criminal Investigation Department
Criminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
was told of the arrest of a man who had tried to swindle some rings from a pair of unemployed actresses that afternoon and apprehended at a pawnshop. The detective was familiar with the Beck case, having been present at Beck's two trials and asked for details. The details fitted the usual pattern but the alleged culprit, Adolph Beck, was already in jail, awaiting sentencing.
The inspector went to the new prisoner's cell. It held a grey-haired man, approximately of Beck's height, with certain features which made him resemble Beck. However, Beck was younger and frailer in build, and this man had a scar on the right side of his neck, as Ottilie Meissoner remembered. The prisoner had given his name as William Thomas but the inspector, convinced that he was John Smith, informed Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
. Three of the five women who identified Beck in his second trial were brought in to confront Thomas and they quickly identified him as the swindler (the other two had gone abroad and thus were not present). Other women were brought in as well who also admitted their error in identifying Beck. When the man who had been John Smith's landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
in 1877 identified Thomas as his former tenant, the prisoner confessed his crimes.
"William Thomas" turned out to be as much an alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
as "John Smith" had been, and he had two aliases as well, "William Wyatt" and "William Weiss". It was learned that his real name was Wilhelm Meyer, who was born in Vienna and had graduated from the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. He studied leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
in the Hawaiian Islands
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
under Father Joseph Damien
Father Damien
Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, SS.CC. , born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious order...
. He later became surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
to the King of Hawaii and was engaged in growing coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, and in various other businesses in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, even setting up practice as a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
in Adelaide before moving to London. Apparently he fell upon hard times when he stayed there, and turned to preying on women through fraud. When Beck was sent to prison in his place, Meyer had gone back to the United States and did not come back until 1903, apparently when he thought Beck had served out his sentence, and resumed his swindling until he was finally arrested. When brought to trial on 15 September, Wilhelm Meyer pled guilty to those offences.
Aftermath
Adolf Beck was given a free pardon by the King on July 29, 1904, and in compensation for his false imprisonmentFalse imprisonment
False imprisonment is a restraint of a person in a bounded area without justification or consent. False imprisonment is a common-law felony and a tort. It applies to private as well as governmental detention...
was awarded £2,000, later raised to £5,000 due to public clamour, again due to G.R. Sims (about £300,000 today), but those who were responsible were the subject of public indignation.
Eventually a Committee of Inquiry was established, headed by the noted jurist and Master of the Rolls
Master of the Rolls
The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice. The Master of the Rolls is the presiding officer of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal...
Sir Richard Henn Collins. It heard evidence from all those involved in the case, including Horace Avory and Sir Forrest Fulton. In its report, it concluded that Adolph Beck should not have been convicted in the first place due to the many errors made by the prosecution in presenting its case. The Committee also chastised Judge Fulton in his conduct on the case, as he should have given consideration to the 1877 case, more so because of his involvement with the 1877 case, which served to prejudice the proceedings against Beck. Furthermore, it criticized the Home Office for its indifference in acting on the case despite the fact that it had known since 1898 that Beck and Smith were not the same man. Instead, it sought to preserve the credibility of the judiciary rather than admit or correct its mistakes. It also stated that the omission of the prison authorities to state the fact of Smith's circumcision in the records of 1877 and 1881 was the primary cause of the miscarriage of justice.
As a direct result of the case, important reforms resulted, including the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal. The case is still cited by judges in Commonwealth countries as a glaring example of how inaccurate eyewitness identification
Eyewitness identification
Eyewitness identification, in criminal law, is evidence received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court"....
can be, and the extreme care with which juries must regard evidence of this kind. As for Adolf Beck, his exoneration brought him little consolation. He died a broken man of pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
and bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...
in Middlesex Hospital
Middlesex Hospital
The Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, United Kingdom. First opened in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally closed in 2005. Its staff and services were transferred to various sites...
on 7 December 1909.
Further reading
- The Strange Case of Adolf Beck by Tim Coates (Stationery Office Books, 2001). ISBN 0-11-702414-7
- The Trial of Adolf Beck edited by Eric R. Watson (William Hodge and company, Notable British Trials series, 1924).