"INGENIOUS METHOD"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 8

"INGENIOUS METHOD"

FARMERS DEFRAUDED

RAILWAY FARES STOLEN

The circumstances under which a number of farmers anxious to obtain labour were defrauded of money forwarded for travelling expenses were described in the Magistrate's Court today when Leo Douglas Morpeth, a labourer, aged 27, appeared before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., and pleaded guilty to six charges of theft. In four of the charges the amount of £1 was involved, in one £1 10s, and a railway ticket valued at £1 0s Id was the subject of another charge. The case for the prosecution was outlined by Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle, and Mr. R. Hardie Boys appeared for Morpeth. Mr. A. J. Armstrong, of Waitara, inserted an advertisement in a Taranaki paper on October 4, said DetectiveSergeant Doyle, asking for a farm labourer, and in response received a le.tter from the accused, making application for the situation under another name. The accused asked to be communicated with care of. the Post Office, Auckland. Mr. Armstrong telegraphed him1 that he would accept his services. Later he received a telegram from the accused asking that portion of the railway fare be forwarded to him, and sent £1 by money-order telegram. The accused did not proceed to his destination, and told the police that he never had any intention of doing so: Detective-Sergeant Doyle related the circumstances of the other charges against the accused, all of a similar nature, and said that in the one in which the railway ticket was concerned he used the ticket, but did not go to the position to reach which the ticket had been sent.

"When apprehended by Detectives Hay and Long," said DetectiveSergeant Doyle, "he had in his possession a number of telegrams and registered envelopes from different farmers throughout New Zealand, and it would appear that some of these people, although we have had no complaints, have been defrauded in the manner in which he has defrauded the persons mentioned in the charges before the Court. In addition he had a memorandum book with the names and addresses of 16 farmers with whom he had been communicating, and it would appear from the correspondence found that he has been systematically defrauding farmers throughout the Dominion for some considerable time. His method was very ingenious, and it would seem that he has been living on the proceeds of money received in this way. He is 27 years of age, physically strong, and well able to work."

The accused had not previously been before the Court on any charge involving dishonesty, said the DetectiveSergeant.

Mr. Boys said he must disagree with the statement that the accused had done no work for several months, and that he was physically strong. He had been seven weeks in Wellington following, a nervous breakdown, and before that had been three months in the Auckland hospital following a severe hemorrhage. He was in a highly nervous and agitated state. For the past seven weeks in Wellington he had been canvassing from house to house, and his earnings averaged about 37s 6d a week.

"He genuinely answered two advertisements simultaneously," said Mr. Boys, "asking for farm labour, and in each of them, in his own answer to the advertisement, he stated that if his application were accepted, he would require his train fare to be paid. To his surprise he got replies from both, each enclosing the fare, and this suggested to him the course he embarked upon over the last couple of months, the temptation having come through the farmers forwarding money."

If given a chance to reform, concluded Mr. Boys, the accused was anxious and willing to get work in the country, and to make restitution.

The case was one which called for imprisonment, said Mr. Scott. The farmers had been systematically defrauded.

Morpeth was convicted and sentenced to one month's imprisonment on each charge, the first and second sentences to be cumulative.