At the North London Police Court yesterday, Myer Simmonds, 28, tailor, was charged on remand with breaking into and entering the New Synagogue, Stamford Hill, and stealing six bell scroll tops, five silver breast plates, two silver pointers, and a curtain, valued altogether at £200.
At the first hearing, Detective-Sergeant Sayer gave evidence that he stopped the prisoner leaving St. Mary’s, Whitechapel Station, carrying a suitcase which was found to contain the articles enumerated in the charge, and a jimmy. The prisoner said that a man had given him the ticket to get the case from the cloak-room. The witness now added that he had compared the jimmy with the marks on the doors and cupboards at the synagogue and found that they correspond exactly.
Henry Byett, caretaker at the synagogue, said that at 1.15 on August 2, he saw a movement behind a curtain. He crept round to the choir room, where he found the prisoner. Asked what he was doing there, he said he wished to make arrangements about a wedding. The address of the choir-master was given to the prisoner, who was then ushered out of the building. The witness saw him again outside at 2.45, when he said he had an appointment with the choir-master at 4.30. The witness told him that on one would be on the premises until 6.45. At that time, the witness returned and found that the place had been broken into. The doors of the Ark had been wrenched open, the curtains torn down, and the silver ornaments were missing.
Arthur Powell, clerk at the St. Mary’s station cloak-room, identified the prisoner as the man who left the suit-case there at 6.30 p. m. and redeemed it at 8.30 on August 2.
J. H. Taylor, secretary of the New Synagogue, said that the owners of the property were the Council of the United Synagogue. He estimated that the value of the ornaments was at least £200. This was one of the oldest synagogues in London, and some of the ornaments were very old.
Detective-Sergeant Hopkins asked for a further remand. No fewer than 20 synagogues in and about London had been broken into, and there was a probability of the prisoner being further charged.
In the witness box the prisoner, who was sworn as a Jew, said he simply took the suit-case for another man who lived at Rowton House, Whitechapel, and was fetching it from the station when he was arrested.
The prisoner was committed to the Sessions for trial. Bail was refused.
The sum of $17,000 was distributed to charitable causes of District Grand Lodge No. 2, I. O. B. B., Samuel I. Sievers, president, announced.
Over $6,000 was sent to the Jewish Orphan Home at Cleveland as the quarterly contribution and $6,000 to the Constitution Grand Lodge as the Order’s quarterly assessment.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
