PULPIT TO PRISON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 67, 6 April 1937, Page 12

PULPIT TO PRISON

Lay Preacher as Secret Drinker and Gambler LONDON EXPOSURE Stripped of his cloak of religion, a lay preaehei* stood exposed at the Old Bailey, London, last month, as a man who secretly drank and gambled with the money he obtained by fraud from small shopkeepers. "You are Obviously a dauger to the public, ' ' Judge Dod^on told the man who, not so long befdrfe, hhd been preaching in the pulpiis Of South Lon-' don churches. The astonishing story of this Jekyll and Hyde existenee was told on the appearance in the doek of Albert George Owen, aged 48, of Streatham, charged with obtaining and attempting to obtain sums of money from shopkedpers with intent to defraud. Owen, a handsome man, who wOre & green suit and a wing Collar, wae described as an advertising agent with offices in the Strand. He represented himself as an agent of the London Bassenger Trahsport Board. Calling on small shopkeepers, many of whom knew him as a respected man of the Church, he said that he wished them to set up an agency for time tables. A condition, however, wai that an advertisement should be ihserted in the time tables. By this means the shopkeepers wefe induced to part with money in payment for the advertisement. According to Detective-Sergeaht Sekton, thdre were 21 outstanding cases ih which Owen had represented himself tt) be from The Londoh Phssengere Traiisport Board. Owen, ha continued, who was a married man living apart from his wife, begaa the business ih October, 1983. The police had investigated 100 cdihplaints regarding the manner in which Owen was running the business, and ha had been arrested five times and discharged in each case. Between june 14, 1935, ahd December 5, 1936, Owen received 70. cheques amouhting to £168, fepresenting sums collected from "customers." "This shows that the business was a profitable one," observetTgergeant Sexi fOEL. "For eome time past," the officer went on, "Owen has led a double life. "He is a iay preacher who is -officially on the roll of the Brixton Hill Methodist Church, and should have preached on the Sunday after his arrest. "From what I have seen at his address he is a "heavy drinker an.d gambler, and has squandered most o£ the money collected in that way«" Detective-Sergeant" Sexton added that Owen was enrolle.d on a Methodist circuit in 1917. Judge Dodson, passing sentence of 12 months' imprisonment, told Owen: "I have nothing to do With youi: private life, but It shows that you are a man who can deceive others most euccessfully. You have deceived those who are rsponsible for your activitiei in another walk of Iffe.

"You are obviously a danger to the public." "Owen came to the district about 12months ago, and" was placed on the circuit of lay preachers," the Rev. Leslie C. Fogg, of the Brixton Hill Methodist Church, told the News of the World. "He came with good references from a minister in another cifcUit, and we had no reason to stispect that he was leading . a double life. He never preached at the bigger churches, but at one or two of the' smailer ones,'*