In 1942 former Western Australian barrister Reginald Cooper, 40, fell out badly with his protégé, the 23-year-old English chorus girl Peggy Stacey.
Two years previously, Cooper saw a photograph of Stacey, who was appearing in the Revue des Allies at London’s Prince of Wales theatre. He was clearly enraptured.
Cooper said he feared for the moral safety of a young, beautiful and penniless actress on the streets of London and he wanted ‘to save a Pom from the Blitz’. From Perth he wrote to solicitors in London asking them to contact Stacey on his behalf and, after some correspondence, she sailed for Sydney. It was obvious what he was looking for: ‘Friendship leading to marriage’ was how he put it.
Quite what Stacey saw in the arrangement was never clear.
Cooper’s attempts to woo the object of his affections proved vain. He wanted to take her to the Ice Follies but she had no evening clothes, so he bought her some. He wanted to dance but she did not, and he went by himself to the wrestling. He offered her money to stay in Australia after the war.
Meanwhile, Stacey was seeing other men with, she said, Cooper’s permission.
Cooper took her to the fashionable Romano’s and then to the Carrington at Katoomba, where it all fell apart. He forced his way into her room intending, he said, to have supper with her. She called the manager and was moved to another room. The next morning she found her clothes had been cut to ribbons and her ticket to Sydney torn up.
Stacey sued for breach of contract, but not of promise, and for damage to her clothing. Cooper, who had not told her he was married with a son, was ordered to pay £730 including £500 damages. He appealed but received no sympathy from the chief justice, who said he was lucky to have escaped with only £500.
Cooper should have stuck with horses: his Blondie, a stakes-winning trotter, turned out to be a more rewarding pursuit.
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