20 SEPTEMBER 1957, Page 15

IDENTIFYING THE PRISONER Sia,—The arguments for Mr. Montgomery Hyde's excellent

suggestions for improvements in cases in- volving evidence of identification arc even stronger than he makes them, for he has slipped into some significant errors and omissions.

The astonishing, and probably unique, fact about the case of Adolf Beck was that he was wrongly identified and convicted in similar circumstances not once, but twice.

As for Oscar Slater, it happens that I am the only person still living who was actively concerned with the last years of that protracted case. Slater. in fact. was never pardoned, as Mr. Hyde states. A long and heartbreaking agitation ultimately brought his re- lease from prisoD in November, 1927. Then, after more effort, a special Act was passed by Parliament which enabled Slater to appeal to the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal. This Court quashed the con- viction in July, 1928, and soon afterwards the authorities paid Slater £6,000 (not £5,000).

On the precedent of Adolf Beck, who had received £5,000 compensation for five years of wrongful imprisonment, it had been expected that Oscar Slater would receive about £20,000. Slater, however, accepted what was offered him without consulting his advisers.

In spite of the unfortunate Timothy Evans, who was hanged, but against whom there was certainly a strong case, the Slater case was worse. There is no space here to recount the details, but in all its aspects : there has never been anything so disgraceful to British