BOGUS DOCTOR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 113, 5 January 1932, Page 7

BOGUS DOCTOR

OBTAINED FREE VOYAGES BY DANGEROUS PRETENCE. | Charles John Powell, aged 21, want- j ed to go from England to Anstralia. So "borrowing" a doctor's name, he signed on as a ship's doctor and went there. On the voyage he attended — • successfully — to several cases; and he went back on another ship belonging to the same line. The story was told in full in a Lon-

don police court, when Powell was fined £5 and £3 3s costs, or 31 days' imprisonment, for pretending to he a doctor and surgeon "contrary to the Medical Act. Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions said "that Powell had some sort of medical training as a hospital attendant, and he applied for a post as a doctor on a Commonwealth and Dominion Line ship, going to Australia, giving the name of a Dr. Duncan Pick, M.B., Ch.B. The magistrate: Then he committed forgery. Counsel: Of course, it was forgery, but it has been decided to proceed under the Medical Act. Powell was eventually posted to the Port Denison, counsel went on, and on the voyage to'Australia he attended to a number of patients. He returned to England on another of the company's steamers. A detective said the youth v really came back to attend the captain of the second ship, and the treatment he gave was very good. He signed on the ship at ls a month and his food. The magistrate: I would like to know if all doctors on this line are rewarded with ls a month for their services. The detective said that what really happened was that doctors who had taken their degrees in England were taken back to Anstralia free. The magistrate told Powell that if anything had happened to the people on board it was pretty elear that he might have been charged with manslaughter.