POLICE ELUDED

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1932, Page 6

POLICE ELUDED

MASTER FOP TER- IN LONDON. BANK CUSTOMERS VICTIMISED. LONDON, September 21. There is at large in London a master forger whose work is. so clever that even victimised bank customers cannot tell his reproductions from their own signatures. . _ An astonishing story of his sctiytm was told at the Old Briley whetfeo# of his accomplices, John Thompson (thirty-one), was sentenced to five years’ ipenal servitude' for uttering forged cheques for £249 . and £l7B. Detective-Inspector Copley, of Scotland Yard, said there were six other cases which Thompson wished to be taken into consideration. Thompson was not the actual forger. He was a prominent member of a- gang of cheque forgers who frequented the King’s Cross and Caledonian Road district. At the beginning of the year the gang wias from eighteen to twenty strong and worked in sections. Letters ncie stolen from letter boxes and cheques attracted were used to forge other cheques. These were presented within halt an hour or so of the theft. Three other members of Thompson’s section of the gang had been sent to penal -servitude in connection with Bournemouth forgeries. Thompson got away and worked fe»t a coftV- ? stall in Westcliff, coming to London occasionally to utter the cheques. In the proceedings against Thompson it was stated that in each ca=e a cheque book was obtained in the name of a- bank customer. Tlie forged cheque for £249 was presented at Catford. Thompson was arrested and committed for trial, hut absconded while on bail last November.