ABSTRACT
Newspapers in the West Midlands covered Jesse Varley's arrest, prosecution and imprisonment, his bankruptcy and his catastrophic fall from grace in very much the same way. The Chronicle explained the charges that were put to him, and reported the arresting officer's account of how he and the Chief Constable had gone to the Town Hall where they detained their prisoner. The Town Clerk Sir Horatio Brevitt, prosecuting on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions, then did his best to unravel what he described as 'the mysteries of this very sad and very serious case'. There were two further witnesses called, the Chronicle’s report went on. The first was the Secretary of the Education Committee Bertram Preston, who had given his evidence-in-chief a month before. The second witness was Inspector George Haynes who was recalled to expand on his evidence as to Varley's arrest.
