ABSTRACT
In December 1927, the British newspaper the Daily Mirror reported the “remarkable disclosures” of the “audacious trick” perpetrated on the editorial and journalistic staff of two rival local and national newspapers. Then living in Calais, an interpreter calling himself Frank Stewart had arranged a meeting with the editor of the Kent Evening Echo. While the details of their discussion and subsequent contractual arrangements went unrecorded, Stewart agreed “to send him news items from France”. Soon after, the editor received a report that “John…O’Connor…had been arrested in Lille for the alleged murder of Nurse Daniels”. It had been over a year since May Daniels had disappeared while visiting Boulogne with a friend on a day trip from Brighton. Despite the best efforts of the French and British authorities, it was five months until her body was found in woods north of the city. Even then the sensational case remained unsolved and continued to draw the attention of “many London and Paris newspapers (who) have sent correspondents to Boulogne to deal with the mystery” (Sydney Morning Herald, March 14, 1927). As rival journalists and “special correspondents” scrambled to be first with the news, Stewart’s on-the-spot revelation seemed like a dramatic and profitable scoop. Yet events were to take a surprising turn: John O’Connor and Frank Stewart were the same person, and this was a “bogus news item”. When the Evening News published the report of O’Connor’s arrest without verifying it, the interpreter “sued for libel he wrote of himself”, claiming £750 in damages from the Associated Press. After the Press’s solicitor investigated, O’Connor was arrested for a series of earlier thefts. Even then he convinced the Liverpool magistrate that he was about to receive compensation as a victim of libel and was bound over rather than imprisoned after promising to reimburse his victims (Guardian, December 20, 1927; Daily Mirror, December 20, 1927; The Times, December 20, 1927).
