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Union men acquitted of blackmail charges
Page 64
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• Not guilty verdicts on all charges against the three TGWU officials, accused of blackmailing Craddocks Road Services (Liverpool) Ltd, were returned by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court, after they had been Out for three and a quarter hours last week.
Harold Lovell Verinder, a commercial services organizer, of Mar!don Road, Liverpool, Anthony John Rafferty, a dockers shop steward, of Brackendale Avenue, Liverpool, and Peter McKeown, of Wesley Street, Waterloo, each faced one charge of making an unwarranted demand for money with menaces, and one charge of conspiring so to do.
During the nine-day trial, the prosecution alleged that the defendants had demanded a payment of £200 from Craddocks, if the blacking of its vehicles at the Liverpool docks, imposed during the containerization dispute, was not to be continued for three months.
The defence denied that any such demand had been made, and maintained that the proposal to make a payment of £200, as a levy or a charitable donation, had come from Craddocks' Bootle manager, Mr Thomas Rycroft, in an attempt to get the company out of its blacking difficulties.
In summing up, Mr Justice Crichton said it was not the function of the jury to express an opinion on the political and industrial issues that were part of the background of the case. A great deal would turn upon what value they put upon Rycroft's evidence and whether a number of admitted inaccuracies were sufficient to prejudice his evidence as a whole.