Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 - 1954), Thursday 5 November 1942, page 1


Sold His

Country For £18;

Executed

LONDON, November 3.—Dun-can Alexander Scott-Ford, a native of Plymouth, was executed at the Wandsworth

prison this morning for treachery. Scott-Ford, who was a merchant seaman, gave information about the move-ments of British ships and received as payment a total of about £18.

After announcing that the execution had been carried out, the Home Office stated: "Scott-Ford was convicted under the Treachery Act at the Central Criminal Court on October 16 be-fore a judge and jury and sen-tenced to death. The trial was heard in camera. Scott-Ford was represented by an eminent coun-sel, but did not appeal.

"This case illustrates the tech-nique of enemy agents in Lisbon and other neutral ports in col-lecting information from British and Allied seamen. Scott-Ford at the time of his arrest was a mer-chant seaman aboard a British vessel making more or less regu-lar trips between Britain and Lis-bon and engaged in trade vital to the British war effort. When Scott-Ford was ashore in Lisbon he was approached by a stranger, who turned out to be an enemy agent, who found him ready to supply the enemy with secret in-formation relating to the British merchant navy in return for money payments. Scott-Ford was paid a sum equivalent to about £18. That was all Scott-Ford re-ceived from the enemy, although a glittering prize was held out to him which lured him deeper and deeper into the blackmailing clutches of the enemy. Thus, when

Scott-Ford returned on a second visit to Lisbon with information

he had collected the Germans, in-stead of honouring their promises, threatened to expose him to the British authorities unless he con-tinued to perform certain services to collect more valuable informa-tion and run greater risks in their interests. Some of the informa-tion Scott-Ford gave the enemy related to his own ship and thus imperilled the lives of his own shipmates. He also gave away detailed information relating to the movements of convoys be-tween Lisbon and Britain.

CONVOY INFORMATION

"When Scott-Ford was arrested certain memoranda were found in his possession. It gave the posi-tion and names of ships and es-corts in a convoy in which he re-turned from his last trip to Bri-tain, also particulars of speed,

course, and distances travelled and

a log of the voyage and a descrip-

tion of the weather conditions and

the amount of aircraft protection provided.

"After his arrest Scott-Ford volunteered a statement, in which he admitted having associated with persons who, he knew, engaged in

espionage on behalf of the enemy,

also that he made notes at the

express request of those agents in order to hand them to the German espionage service on his return to Lisbon.

"Scott-Ford, on his return to England, carried out German secret service agents' instructions by touring public houses and mixing with fellow seamen and

members of the services in order to pump them for information in their possession.

"The moral to be drawn from this case was that British and Allied seamen when visiting neu-tral ports should be constantly on guard against strangers who may frequently approach them for ap-parent innocent services. Such strangers are apt to be enemy agents, who lure their unsuspect-ing victims into a course of con-duct which may expose them to blackmailing attempts by the enemy and induce them to betray their country and the Allied

cause."

Scott-Ford is the third British

subject hanged for treachery this year. The others were a seagoing engineer and a native of Gibral-tar. Eleven enemy agents have been executed. Ten of them were

hanged, but Joseph Jacobs, a Ger-man, was shot by a firing squad in the Tower of London on August 15, 1941. The nationalities of the 11 were: Three British, four Ger-

man, two Dutch, one Belgian, and one Swiss. During the last war 19 were sentenced to death as

spies. They were eight neutrals, eight enemy aliens, two Allied nationals, and one Britisher.

BRISBANE, November 3.-A notice was posted at the Ipswich railway workshops today, stating that the shops would be closed from December 25 until January 3. Work will be resumed on Jan-uary 4.