CLEVER FORGERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 191, 6 April 1932, Page 7

CLEVER FORGERS

employed dupes ROBHED PILLAR-BOXES TO OBTAIN ORIGINALS OF SIGNATURES. DANGEROUS GANG. LONDON. Astonishing ruses whereby members • of a clever gang of forgers kept out of the law's reach were brought to notice at Birmingham Assizes when Mr. Justice MacKinnon passedi sentences on William Douglas Grathan 32, engineer, to seven years' penal ser- , vitude; David Martin, 25, variety artist, four years' penal servitude; and John Taylor, 38, motor-driver, three y years' penal servitude. ' . These three men were stated to be piembers of a notorious gang of criminals who obtained thousands of pounds by cojnmitting forgery in Lon- . don and the provinces. The forgeries which gave Nse. to the trial were committed in Spalding', Lincolnshire, where a cheque for £9.8 was honoured by Barclays Bank. When Granthan went to the National Provincial Bank with another cheque for £93 the doors were closed and he was detained. The evidence was that the men motored from London to Spalding, where, with forged documents, they got a cheque-hook from one bank and a single cheque form from another. The prosecution contended that _ Martin forged the cheques that Grathan presented, and that Taylor drove them. On Taylor were found some notes with which Barclays Bank had honoured the cheque presented to them. The judge, in his summing-up, remarked: — "A clumsy forger writes slowly and under a magnifying-glass it can be seen where the pen has paused, buf the forged signatures in this case were written hy a free hand without the slightest hesitation. "The people who committed these forgeries either themselves or through others, robbed letter-boxes in London and ohtained genu.ine signatures of people with accounts at particular hanks." Men's Records. Det.-Sergt. Evans, • of Scotland Yard, detailing the men's records, stated that included in Grathan's four convictions was one of seven years' penal servitude for manslaughter. He shot at and killed a man who attempted to stop him after a burglary. He had also been sentenced to three years' penal servitude for - smashing a jeweller's shop window and stealing diamond rings when using a stolen motor car. Taylor, added the -detective, had 11 previous convictions, many of them i for stealing letters. He was undoubt- ; edly one of Grathan's dupes. Martin, ; who had heen convicted four times, was a very skilful writer. Martin's brother, the detective mentioned, was now serving 12 years' penal servitude for forgery, and Mar- . tin had himself heen connected with the Josephine O'Dare forgeries. After saying thaij prisoners were memhers of a notorious gang, Det.Sergt. Evans continued : — "The difficulty in detecting them is that they use dupes. They frequent West End haunts, and get hold of fallen women, people who have never been convicted, dress them well, and then use them for the purpose of exchanging forged cheques. "There are two people in prison now who were their dupes." There was no doubt, the detective added, that Taylor was afraid to leave. such a man as Grathan. ,j . In regard to Martin, the judge said, it was obyious that if he forged the cheques, as the evidence pointed, he was one of the most dangerous and skilful forgers now in existence.