Confessions Exclusive R. T. Payne, Giles Play fair and Derrick
Sington, Stanley H. Canham, Brian Inglis Beastly to the Germans E. D. Pickering Donkey for Dinner H. Grobe Culturology Julius Gould, J. Peter White Hymns as Poetry Nicolas Alldrit, 'T.D.'
New Men in the Town Hall R. Turrall-Clarke John Symonds Gwen Marsh Celestial Infancies Michael Cummings The Alternative Vote Enid Lakenian Educational TV J. A. Harrison and others Edwin Muir Peter Butter CONFESSIONS EXCLUSIVE
S1R,—Mr. Brian Inglis, who so often points out the errors of his fellow journalists, should have checked the facts before making his comments on Encoun- ter's article on the confessions of Donald Hume.
He says that, three months after his release from prison, having served a sentence for being the accessory after the fact in the Setty murder case, Hume was 'handsomely rewarded by the Sunday Pictorial for a blood-curdling "confession" to the Setty murder itself.'
Mr. Inglis then declares: 'But, as the writers of the article [in Encounter] are easily able to show, Hume did not kill Setty.'
If he had bothered to check with the Sunday Pictorial, Mr. Inglis would have discovered that there were inaccuracies in the Encounter article— and the authors produced no new evidence at all that Hume was not Setty's murderer. Shortly after his release, Donald Hume came to this office to seek the advice of Fred Redman, formerly a crime reporter on the Pictorial, whom he had known at the time of his trial and after.
It is completely untrue to suggest that he was ever pressed or encouraged by the Pictorial to make a confession.
Hume made his confession at his own wish, and it was accepted, and published, only after weeks of interrogation—and only after it had been vetted, line by line, by senior police officers in charge of the Setty murder case.
When Mr. Inglis comments, 'If you can invent a crime story grisly enough, there is no need actually to have participated in the crime . . . some news- paper will buy your lies :' and when he declares that 'the lies enabled him [Hume] to revenge himself on his unfortunate wife,' he is impugning the in- tegrity not only of Mr. Redman, but also of Mr. Victor Sims and the late Mr. Bill Turner, who all worked for weeks checking the accuracy of Hume's statements.
Mr. Inglis, indeed, is guilty of something for which he would be sacked if he worked for the Sunday Pictorial. He has taken an article from another publication and treated it as gospel.
R. T. PAYNE Editor Sunday Pictorial, Holborn Circus, ECI
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