“RAISING THE WIND”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 246, 7 January 1928, Page 7

“RAISING THE WIND”

SEAMAN IN COURT GET-RICH-QUICK TRADING Press Association HAWERA, Friday. The get-rich-quick methods of Andrew Alexander Clark, alias Hugh Grant, alias Hugh Vernon Ponsford, a seaman, did not bring him into favour with the police. He pleaded guilty to charges of theft and false pretences at the Police Court to-day and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. The first charge was one of stealing a gramophone, valued at £39, and the second a charge of fraudulently obtaining a cycle-car valued at £IOO by falsely representing that the gramophone was his property. According to the evidence accused, using the name of Ponsford, secured the gramophone at Hawera in March on hire purchase, paying £2 10s as deposit, with instalments of 7s 6d. Then he traded the gramophone as a deposit on a cycle-car at Eltham, £3O being allowed by the dealer. At Auckland in June he traded the cycle-car as a deposit on a motor-cycle, priced at £95. The cycle was later sold to a Hawke’s Bay resident, from whom it was recovered by the Auckland firm. Accused was further charged with fraudulently obtaining £6O from a Lower Hutt resident in July, by falsely representing himself to be a flight-lieu-tenant at the Sockburn aerodrome. He was remanded to appear in Wellington on this charge.