THE HISTORY OF A STRUPENDOUS FRAUD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1057, 23 January 1884, Page 4

THE HISTORY OF A STRUPENDOUS FRAUD.

The Whalley will case, writes a Lon- ‘ don correspondent, which has occupied a judge and jury for three weeks past, is at last over, and romancists hqxe before them material for as sensatidnarh rioveT as } ever was concocted by Mirs Braddon or Wisgobey. The ■. question which the jury had to decide was this : A stupendous fraud involving the ownership of a vast fortune had been committed either by plaintiff or defendant. Whfeh was the sinner ?On ' the one hand* the>saintiff- brought his action t6' establish the fact that a Gorged will had been deliberately manufactured and supported by perjured testimony in order. -toisecure at least a share in the large property of which old Mr Whalley died possessed in the springjjf iBBj. 7 Oathe other the delendSwtu&wdesperately to bay, and asserted through their counsel the plaintiff and his advisers were the real conspir£tbr?,r - who had not only - suborned witnesses to prove their case, but had ..themselves forged the document which most strongly supported it. us, then, consider the story, or ibther a brief tewpitulation of the ifpding features, in May, iSgi/Mr Whalley; an died v at in the house of a railway he-bad been- lodging for some time fjpeyis|sivtoy his *, dc^th.: Mr Whalley ’ was not on terms of intimacy with any of his relatives with the exception of ■ two natural children—Henry Whalley Priestman, the plaintiff in the present' ' action, and his sister, Emma Prifestafter ,the old man’s death a will was produced by Thomas, the railway porter, and a wine merchant named by which the * latter was nominated executor, and the btUk of the, estate, amounting to betW&n and L 60,000, was left to ■■ Thomas. Henry Priestman, the plaintiff, took a legacy of LSOOO, but no one -0U& hadahyf beneficial, interest. The disputed in the Pro- - bate Court, but the proceedings termi- * nated in a compromise, by which Thomas took Li 7,000. At jhis time - it was not alleged that the will, which 11 was dated the 21st of March, was foigedj-but-another will was set up, - under which Henry Priestman took the . bulk of the property in the place of ‘ Thomas.".; -The . present action was brought* to '•set aside this compromise, .on the ground .that it had been ob- - by fraud; and. some of the evidence establish this fraud was * of the most singular kind. In October, that the origif jffe{2ist March, which had thb old man’s death in official custody, r Bore upon it certain pencil marks. An examination by experts reveiled, the, fact that some of this pencil wWihg*wU .decipherable, and certain ’ words were visible, which were unqiiesi ‘ tionably either in the hand writing of Thomas, or a. very, good imitation of it." to the will were’two men named^Nasb, and. .Rees,, the latter of ■ ■ made ' a confession in, the wit- , ness box which showed, if true, that a most remarkable fraud hjd been committed. It was alleged that a letter . - hadhbeetr written in pencil by Thomas, dictation'of Whalley, to Henry Priestman, to which the old man had band fide affixed bis signature; that this . • hqgn .retained by Thomas,. ■ instead of sending it; that the pencil " writing had been then rubbed out; and thwa * ilf had been written in by Nash: '(Virhb.'had been a solicitor’s * c^^) ,! kboye : ‘thp old man’s signature, :: ‘ tbe^jf^-attestiog.,witness, Rees, being, dt Ajparty .to The real .will of Mr Whalley, it was alleged, gam hw ; propertytd the plaintiff, his fnafarAt Soft; and ih support of this 1 tßfiofylfiot .bnly‘ihdireCt expressions by f the , d f e Be forged wm wererelied -on,.but a astettMrWriUen by, him .to Emma Priestpfafp aoc'ApriU; 19 was ; produced, in wH«dMbe> deceased- unequivocally dehe had so ' dealt with his until late in the litigation :?: was accounted for by the fact that it cfWktaingd.ar teference to a secret of a «j»i!UbUcufti;'4tnowtronly to Miss Emma Bridfclßianaind the deceased, ; to which

- she was extremely reluctant to give by the thus set up was ndeed,! desperate. It; was saux mat Kees had been bought over to irfttift dS'sttppqrt .tRe 4 Story, and that afteropfe“h'ave Been made to suborn Nash in the same way} 1 that* the letter ' - of April .19 had been deliberately forged: with the same object, and that _it had ndobemferthcoming at an earlier date, simply .because it was not then in existence. The pencil marks on the will were- 4ea|t .with in. the same manner. - TSe'pUuhtitPs witnesses had explained their presence by alleging that the erasure, of pencil bread or ihdia robber is igenerally' imperfect, and conpart of merely roughening _ . the-, surface filaments of.the)paper, so* as to hide the. marks.' dfr was'-Said that in time these displaced filaments have a : tended7ito; re-straighten themselves, asidVrapovaf J the . original ‘surface, and that? thteihad taken pi during the - that ffte' will was in Tfip defendant could ' mt aenjMhat the pencil, marks were there, because they were visible to por ; cbuld .he dis ||§lC to be in his ma^rnpng.^',but his counsel suggested that they Had been artificially placed , qj&dipi wity-by-transferring them ’ from .. another piece of - paper during an in-1 spection Hereford Regis- 1 -■ tty, or at S€mret|et > ' House. Witnesses prove tMt this was pos-1 jnb&i, and thSre' of expert i fo"whether the surface of in, accordance with this * raeotytft witntbe for the plaintiff, (- The maxim ‘ Ittera scttpia manent ’ was r perhapa(gi¥SS? raorestrungly illustrated. ' Even ordinary dispute, however, would 1 >nbr> baye' prolonged the it been tor of minutely ipvestigat.vhich haderided in dSSitjmtig Kees from the party of £•; && ndWst whiqh, -were. said ; , to IttiLi It waa.sbeyond question CJ. that money, ‘or, as it ~g: was put by Nfish-hiraself, of, 4 a hapd- & hid made by bts jQa'ijpre to keep kgain J .the defendant

retaliated, and accused the plaintiff and his solicitor of offering these men pecuniary bribes to invent and support the story of the plot. The whole case, in short, reeked with conspiracy and fraud of the grossest kind; but the jury found no difficulty In deciding that the accusations made by the plaintiff were true, and that Thomas and Nash were the guilty parties. That Thomas and Nash, to say nothing of Kees, were guilty of forgery and conspiracy was demonsstrated as clearly as can be expected or required in a civil court. Such was the verdict of the jury, with which the Judge expressed his entire concurrence.”