Well, if it’s 23 April, it must be… yes, of course! The anniversary of the magnificently named 58-year-old politician and journalist Sir Leo Money being arrested in Hyde Park with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Irene Savidge, for ‘outraging public decency’.
To be precise, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
Sir Leo — born Leone Giorgio Chiozza in Genoa in 1870 — had moved to Britain in the 1890s and been parliamentary private secretary to that renowned model of probity David Lloyd George. Savidge was a radio valve inspector at a factory in south London.
She was also engaged to a commercial clerk called Frank Gentle, and had been introduced in November the previous year “by a friend and co-worker, Marie Egan” to Sir Leo, a man with a certain… reputation.
He began to take her out to the theatre and to dinner. Her parents knew, but whether young Frank did is less certain. Anyway, when the coppers swooped, Leo didn’t quite pull the old ‘don’t you know who I am?’ routine, but…
That’s an excerpt from William Donaldson’s Brewers’ Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics, which isn’t completely reliable, but is consistently entertaining. What we do know is that the magistrate dismissed the case and told the Home Office he thought the constables had made it all up.
In We Danced All Night — A Social History of Britain Between the Wars, eminent historian Martin Pugh says:
But was Pugh — born 19 years after the incident — there to witness? He was not. Was I? Also no. The point is: he’s right in that we shouldn’t automatically print the ‘public wanking’ legend, but nor should we shy away from the fact that it’s by far the more entertaining version. Anyway…
Back to ODNB, and “The Home Office immediately referred the case to [the also rather finely named] Archibald Bodkin, the director of public prosecutions, to consider prosecution of the constables.” Bodkin, aware of Money’s reputation, set up a new investigation.
“Chief Inspector Alfred Collins of Scotland Yard, a senior officer with a good record of getting convictions” questioned Savidge for five hours with only a short break, asked about her clothes and sex life, and fondled her knee.
In a later statement, Irene further alleged:
Eventually, she signed a statement which may as well have said “It’s a fair cop, guv”, and fainted when she got home. Questions were raised in the House of Commons about her treatment, “and caused an outcry from all political parties”.
Joynson-Hicks set up a tribunal of inquiry, at which Savidge repeated her allegations about the interrogation, and the two officers denied them. A female officer, Lilian Wyles, who’d brought her in, but been sent away before the questioning
Labour MP H. B. Lees-Smith
The young woman’s response was understandable:
Eventually, of course, (and very gradually) the way police treated suspects changed (and still… leaves something to be desired, let’s say). Which is pretty much the end of the story. Well, except:
Yes, in the language of the 21st century, he sexually assaulted a woman on a train. And remained a knight of the realm. Ah, well — at least we live now in more enlightened times, when wealth and social position no longer protect people from the consequences of their actions…
