HUGE FRAUDS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 January 1933, Page 6

HUGE FRAUDS

SUM OK £IO,OOO CONVERTED

SIX YEARS’ FOR YOUNG BROKER

LONDON, December 22

A man who at one time was the youngest stockbroker in Great Britain was sentenced at Devon years’ penal servitude.

He p.eaded guilty to charges of fraudulent conversion, involving £6OOO, and: asked that eleven other charges involving £4OOO should be taken into consideration..

The mail, William Douglas AlcKinnon (;j3), of Torquay, joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917, affd crashed in France when 18 years of age.

Air E. Hawke,,prosecuting, said that McKinnon had been a stockbroker at Torquay. At one time lie was secretary of the local chamber cl commerce.

In April lie filed his petition in bankruptcy, and it was found that instead of buying shares with the money entru-stfid to liim by his clients, lie had u s ed it for his own pttorposes. One charge involved a widow, and in respect of that extradition proceedings were begun. ‘‘Unfortunately, before McKinnon could be brought before any tribunal the woman committed suicide,” said Air Hawke. She was in financial trouble at the time.” Oil April 30 AlcKinnon sailed for •South America, but was arrested and brought back to England. Mr F. Lackey defending, said that when McKinnon bought the stockbroking business was 23, and was for some time the ,youngest stockbroker in the country practising on his own account. His turnover - amounted to £IOO,OOO a year, but in 1928 misfortune overtook him! Trouble came in battalions, and in ..one transaction lie -lost'£4ooo. T„ regard to -the woman who committed. suicide, Air -Laskey said that she was .a woman; of some means,. r-iid lie did not think she lost . all her money through . trusting AlcKinnon. “I do not 'think he was responsible for her committing suicide,” lie said. Ali- Laskev .added that when McKinnon; was arrested lie spent five months in a prison, at. Rio do Janiefo, sharing a cell with negroes and mulattoos, and the food was so revolting that not even his fellow-prisoners could cat it.