The judge who was fed up of sleuths

In the 1920s, one judge resented the business put his way by private detectives

Justice Roche, the High Court judge, was, in 1923, rather frustrated with the booming business of private detectives. One day in November that year, he was presiding over a whole series of cases at the Divorce Court which he regarded as ‘poor people’s divorces’. These, he felt, were largely presented to him on the basis of evidence gathered by the private detectives who lived and worked in many towns and cities across England and Wales. In court, he tutted,

“I do not feel disposed to grant decrees on such evidence. When the State has to pay for the case, I will not encourage private inquiry agents in such cases.”

One of the cases he was annoyed about was that brought by Leicester hosiery forewoman Constance Sharp, who argued that her husband Arthur was guilty of adultery, desertion and cruelty. Although she did not mention a private detective, she did note that although her husband had deserted her two years earlier, she had “since discovered that he had committed adultery with a woman named East”. It was likely that this information had been discovered by a detective employed by Constance.

As I hope I’ve shown on Secret Sleuths, the bread-and-butter work of private detectives was in shadowing married people - they were frequently commissioned by a person seeking a divorce, to find evidence that would enable them to divorce. Both men and women had to prove adultery - with women having to also prove cruelty - and detectives would follow a spouse around in the hope of discovering them with a lover, even if engaged in seemingly innocent activities.

The proliferation of detectives meant that more people were able to commission them, and more evidence of adultery was likely to be found. This resulted in even those from humble backgrounds seeking divorces, armed with plenty of evidence. In turn, this meant more work for Justice Roche, who, on this November day, articulated his annoyance with the private detective profession.