The Constables and the ‘Garage Girl’

Abstract

In the summer of 1928, the arrest on a disorder charge of a young woman in north London who gave her name as Helene Adele led to a press sensation after she claimed that the officers had falsely accused her in order to discredit her claim that one of them had sexually assaulted her. The constables were ultimately prosecuted, convicted and discharged from the Metropolitan Police. This article considers the Adele case in the context of intense concerns about the possible abuse of police powers—particularly in cases involving women—in the late 1920s. Adele was catapulted onto the front pages of Britain's sensationalist press: her serialised memoir appeared in a newspaper and was reprinted in a women's magazine. However, her case was more than just a tabloid spectacle. Contributing to historians' reconsideration of the sensationalist inter-war press, this article shows how the coverage of the case fit into the press's interest in young working-class women's lifestyles and sexuality, highlighting how ‘human interest’ journalism could be intermixed with social critique.