A feeling of deja vu was prompted by the first case of a man convicted under the Public Order Act of harassment by stroking a woman’s hair. In 1938, a young girl had her plait cut off in Shepherd’s Bush, London. It was a case of rounding up the usual suspect and misidentification, as well as demonstrating that prison often has no effect.
William Alfred Wright had convictions for the offence dating back to 1921. After seeing photos, newspaper articles on the fetish and, unsurprisingly, a pair of scissors, two girls thought he was their attacker. A third girl was sure he was.
In 1924, Wright had told a Chatham court he had started his offending in an attempt to be discharged from the Royal Navy. He had served for nine years with a good record and had tried and failed to obtain a discharge. He received 21 days with hard labour.
Finally out of the Navy, he continued with his fetish, but it had been two years since Wright was last convicted, receiving 12 months at Tottenham Magistrates’ Court. Now he was remanded in custody at West London for a week.
While Wright was on remand, a 20-year-old engineer, Jack Boniel, was caught in flagrante cutting a girl’s plait at a bus stop in Shepherd’s Bush. He had a habit of leaving his flat and cutting a girl’s hair in a crowd, before going home with his trophy. Often, the girls did not realise what had happened. One plait, found in his flat, was identified as belonging to a girl in the Wright case. Boniel confessed and Wright was released. Boniel was placed on probation and ordered to undergo hospital treatment. It seems to have worked.
No such luck for Wright, who continued offending until at least 1952, when he received three years at Hertford Quarter Sessions, this time for an incident in Watford. Asked why he had not seen a doctor, Wright said he had tried to get treatment but had been told: ‘We cannot work miracles.’ Now the chairman told him in words echoed today: ‘Young girls and the public generally must be protected from this sort of thing.’
James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor
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