REMARKABLE CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 982, 31 August 1903, Page 2

REMARKABLE CASE.

ALLEGED IMPERSONATION. (Per Press Association.) Auckland, last night. On Saturday afternoon Detectives Henderson and Hollis arrested a man going by the name of Richard Ascott, on a charge of obtaining money by false pretences from the Auckland Branch of the Bank of New Zealand, by representing himself to be “ Richard A. Scott,” son of a Suva widow. The sums mentioned in the information are DIO and £6. The case is likely to arouse some interest, as tho aim of the prosecution is to prove that the man under arrest is not Richard A. Scott, the widow’s son, though they are not in a position to say who the man is if ho is not what ho claims to be. Mrs Ascott’s son joined a volunteer contingent when tho South African war broke out, and served at tho Cape. His mother heard nothing of him for a lengthy period, but in June last cables commenced to come from Auckland in her .son’s name, containing requests for money. The mother expected a long letter from her son, and cabled him to write to her. This request was met with more cablegrams, and becomiug somewhat suspicious that “Richard A. Scott” of the cable messages was not the genuine person, she communicated with Mr Murehie, tailor, of Auckland, a personal friend of the family, and asked “ Scolt ” to see Murehie himself. The man did not give the Murehie, an opportunity of seeing him, but sent them a parcel containing photographs of the Scott family and a large number of family documents. There are four persons in Auckland who know Richard A. Scott, of Suva, including ono who went to school with him there, and they allege that while the prisoner is of a similar build he-looks older, and has the accent of a Transvaaler.