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Raymond Henry Bousquet - aka Del Fontaine.



Raymond Henry Bousquet - aka Del Fontaine.

30 year old Bousquet was a French Canadian citizen and professional boxer.  As Del Fontaine he had won the Canadian middleweight boxing championship in 1926 and again in 1931.  In 1932 he moved to London to continue his career, leaving his wife in Canada.

In 1933 Bousquet struck up a relationship with Hilda A. Meek whose age was given as 18 or 19.  They met at the Locarno dancehall in Streatham.  The relationship would continue for two years, until Bousquet decided to return to his wife in Winnipeg.  Hilda pleaded with him to come back and this he did.  However, he soon found out that Hilda was seeing other men and on July the 10th 1935 he wrote Hilda a letter in which he threatened to kill her if she persisted with the other relationships.  He arranged to meet her at the Redcap Pub in Camberwell, where he gave her the letter. 

They visited other pubs before Hilda went home to see her mother, Alice.  20 minutes later Bousquet followed her and let himself into Alice’s house at 60 Aldred Road in Kennington, London.  Here he found Hilda on the telephone arranging a date.  He grabbed the phone and told the man on the other end that Hilda would not be meeting him.  Hilda took the phone back and assured the man that she would be keeping their date.

At this point Bousquet snapped and drew out his revolver.  He chased the two women into the street and shot them both.  Hilda died at the scene but Alice, who had been shot in the stomach, recovered in hospital.  There were several other eye witnesses to the killing. 

Bousquet was arrested and told police “I have shot the girl I really care for.  She has broken my heart and ruined my life.  I don’t care if I die tonight.”

The trial was held at the Old Bailey on the 10th to the 16th of September 1935, before Mr. Justice Porter.  The facts of the shooting were not in dispute, only Bousquet’s mental state.  

The defence contended that Bousquet was suffering from acute depression and was probably "punch drunk" at the time of the crime.  In the normal way Bousquet was asked if he had anything to say before being sentenced to which he replied “Nothing at all”.  After being condemned Bousquet gave a smile and bowed to the judge before leaving the dock.

His appeal before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Humphreys and Singleton was dismissed on Monday the 14th of October.  Thousands of signatures were collected for a reprieve but the Home Secretary was unmoved by them.

On the morning of Tuesday the 29th of October 1935 Bousquet was led to the gallows at Wandsworth and hanged by Robert Baxter and Thomas Phillips.  Bousquet was quite a big man for his day, standing 5’ 10” tall and weighing 186 lbs.  He was described on the LPC4 form as “stout and strong”.  

Baxter gave him a drop of 6’ 6” which caused some laceration of the neck.  It was noted on the form by both the governor and prison doctor that Robert Baxter’s eyesight was deteriorating at this time.  The following day Baxter would carry out his last execution, that of Allan Grierson at Pentonville.

Violet van der Elst led a demonstration against the hanging outside the prison but the police had effectively sealed off the roads around the prison, which even now are quite narrow residential streets.

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