Forbidden Picture

In the courtroom, the case of the fatal charmer Neville George Clevely Heath was handled with typical British dispatch. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang, all within three days. Now the British press could set up a-long-suppressed howl.

Heath had killed two girls; in the fortnight between the murders, Scotland Yard had let the papers say he was wanted because "he might be able to help in the investigations"--but had forbidden them to print his picture. With the Yard's con-tempt-of-court club no longer over their heads, London dailies last week angrily attacked this police censorship. Their argument: they could have shown Heath's picture to Britain's millions in the two weeks while he was at large--as American papers would certainly have done--and it might well have prevented the second murder.

Scotland Yard's unruffled reply: witnesses might have been influenced if they had seen the hunted man's picture before identifying him in the lineup. British justice--as the press well knew--would rather run the risk of a murderer at large than prejudice the chances of a man on trial for his life.

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