Smooth-tongued steward
On 28 November 1940, Frederick Dudley Case was tried at the Perth Supreme Court for procuring a girl under the age of twenty-one for purposes of prostitution. Case, a thirty-year-old steward, had allegedly convinced nineteen-year-old orphan Grace Barden to leave her employment to live with his sister. As she struggled to find work, Case suggested that she go into business in Roe Street. Case then explained what this involved, and later drove her to one of the brothels. Concerned by the Barden’s youthful appearance, the brothel’s madam tipped off the police, who picked her up upon her exit. Case then tried to use another woman’s birth certificate as proof Barden was over twenty-one. Despite public concern about such cases of ‘white slavery’, procuration charges were notoriously difficult to substantiate. A nolle prosequi was entered at the close of the Crown’s evidence.
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