WHY did he do it - and not once but twice?

Vivian Webber had been on good terms with Mrs Easty and her daughter Helen but then mysteriously terminated their friendship and within weeks began writing a series of derogatory articles about them, telling the bewildered woman the public had a great appetite for scandal and he intended to pander it by attacking them in the Press.

He later seemed to have realise the enormity of his denounciations by making an unreserved apology in the Illustrated Isle of Wight Guardian.

But, as Hampshire Assizes were to hear. no sooner had that been published that he embarked on a similar scurrilous campaign, not just locally but strangely also in Wales.

He even smeared their reputation in letter to Easty's solicitor and in especially printed circulars for distribution on the Island.

Webber was in time arrested and charged with publishing a malicious and defamatory libel.

Initially he pleaded not guilty but following a last minute discussion with his barrister, changed his plea.

His lawyer, Sir Thomas Bucknill QC, while unable to defend his conduct, could only put forward mitigation that the mother and daughter would not have been injured in the eyes of those people who knew them as highly respectable people.

He urged the judge, Mr Justice Stephen, to adjourn sentence until he had read all the papers in the case. He agreed and remanded Webber in custody until the following morning.

Reinforcing his reputation as one of the most forthright judges of his time, the judge condemned Webber.

"Attacking her in certain newspapers was a most infamous and cowardly thing to do," he stormed. ""All kinds of disgraceful things were imputed to her."

The judge then laid into the Press for publishing the mischief, declaring that if the editor of the local paper had been in the dock, he would received a far greater sentence.

"I cannot see a grater prostitution and abuse of the powers of the newspaper press than this. To publish calumnies and reports on families, even if true, is intolerable for such things are not the business of the public."

He then told Webber: "You have the good fortune of falling into the hands of a gentleman, your learned counsel - a class from which you have now through your conduct excludced yourself and have fallen away from the society of all decent people. Your attacks on these women are infinitely more gross than the lowest assaults committed by the most gross ruffians."

Jailing him for four months with a £150 fine and ordering to be of good behaviour for five years, th judge lamented: "I regret I cannot give you hard labour. The law does not allow it but you should be subject to every indignity inflicted on thieves and rogues."