From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IG,
Look what I dug up... The mysterious missing page! This is ancient history,
though no-one else got it all. I can't send it you on my revoked FAC because
as you know, they aren't returned to the previous owner, and besides, I
don't have your address.
-----------------------------------
Turf Fraud Scandal
or Trial of the Detectives
This notorious corruption scandal in 1877 resulted in the reorganisation of
the
Detective Branch into the C.I.D.
A rich Parisian woman, Madame de Goncourt, became the victim of two English
confidence tricksters, Harry
Benson and William Kurr, who persuaded her to part with ú30,000. Scotland
Yard were
called in, and Superintendent
Adolphus Williamson employed a bright multi-lingual Chief Inspector,
Nathaniel
Druscovich, to bring Benson back
from Amsterdam where he had been arrested. Druscovich seemed to find the job
surprisingly difficult. Sergeant
John Littlechild and two others were sent to catch Kurr, and were repeatedly
foiled
by his moving on just as they
expected to arrest him. Eventually they caught up with him in Edinburgh, and
he
stood trial and was convicted.
Scotland Yard began to wonder why the arrests had been so difficult, and
Benson and
Kurr began to explain.
Inspector John Meiklejohn, a deeply corrupt character, had been in Kurr's
pay since
1873, accepting large sums
of money to tip him off when his crimes were about to lead to his arrest.
Meiklejohn had offered Druscovich the
opportunity to borrow money from Kurr to repay his brother's debts, and thus
Druscovich was also implicated, as
was Chief Inspector Palmer, who appears to have been duped into going along
with
his colleagues.
The Trial in Progress at the Old Bailey
The three were sentenced to two years in prison, and the scandal nearly
wrecked
Williamson's career. Although
his integrity was unquestioned, his supervision of subordinates seemed
wanting, and
following the Committee of
Inquiry, Howard Vincent was given the opportunity to reshape the Detective
Branch.
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