THE DIMSDALE FORGERIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5302, 23 March 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DIMSDALE FORGERIES.

(From the London Law Times.)

Karely have frauds been committed on a more gigantic scale than those of Dimsdale aud his fellow-prisoners, Moore, Tate, and Drake. From the evidence there could be no doubt that a sum exceeding £300,000 had been obtained by these frauds. The evidence was so clear that the counsel for the prisoners felt it would be hopeless to struggle against it, and took the somewhat unusual course of objecting that the law as laid down by the prosecution was not correct, before the close of the case for the prosecution. The frauds were -perpetrated by meaas of documents which purported to be leases relating to property at Croydon and other places, drawn in regular form, to which property the prisoners had no legal right whatever. The prisoners had signed their own names to these documents. The Attorney-General, in stating the law applicable to the case, said “that the legal offence of forgery did not consist, as was popularly supposed, only in signing the name of another person ; but, if an instrument of the kind which the prosecution suggested had been used in this case was uttered and made use of for the purposes of fraud, although the partiesigned their own names to the instrument, the act amounted to forgery, and the parties concerned were amenable to the charge of that ciimo.” The learned Judge agreed with this statement of the law, and the prisoners thereupon, by their counsel’s advice, withdrew their pleas of “ not gnilty and the learned Judge sentenced Dimsdale to penal servitude for life, Moore to seven years’ penal servitude, and Tate and Drake each to one year’s imprisonment with hard labor. There can be no doubt of the accuracy of the statement of the law made by the AttorneyGeneral. In Keg. v. Bitson (L. Kep. 10. C. K.) the authorities relating to the definition of forgery were carefully examined, and it was held that every instrument which fraudently purports to be that which it is not is a forgery. The sentence awarded to Dimsdale may seem severe, but when the circumstances of the case are considered, it will not be found too much so. In early times the crime of forgery was of rare occurrence, and the crime was at common law a misdemeanour only. As writing became more common and commerce increased, the importance of the crime, and the injuries resulting from it increased, and a heavier punishment ivas attached to it. By 5 Eliz. c. 14, the crime was raised to the degree of felony without benefit of clergy, in the case of a second conviction for forging deeds, wills, court-rolls, &c. So many statutes were afterwards passed that Sir William Blackstone in his “ Commentaries ” said :—“ I believe, through the number of . these general and special provisions there is now hardly a case to be conceived wherein forgery that tends to defraud, whether in the name of a real or fictitious person, is not made a capital crime.” Subsequently, by 7 Will, 4 and 1 Vic. c. 84, the punishment of death in cases of forgery was abolished, and the maximum punishment now is penal servitude for life. If ever there was a case of forgery in which a judge was justified in passing, to the full extent of his discretion, a severe punishment, this undoubtedly is one. ■