“A SHOCKING FRAUD”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 1

“A SHOCKING FRAUD”

Hatry Four Prosecuted A WITHERING INDICTMENT Worthless Scrip Allegedly Issued (Untied F.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service)

Received 10 a.m. LONDON, Friday. CLARENCE HATRY and his three associates, Edmund Daniels, John G. Dixon and A. E. Tabor, were brought before the Court today and remanded till October 4. Sir George Prescott was on the Bench. Defendants sat in front of the dock, which was not used.

Mrs. Hatry was not present. A j friend said she was resting in the C °Hatry looked composed—almost theerful- Defendants chatted in animated fashion with their counsel. The whole proceedings resembled an informal company meeting rather than the drama to which they formed the prelude. y Mr. Henry D. Roome, third senior prosecuting counsel to the Crown at jhe Central Criminal Court, represented the Public Prosecutor. He !aid that six months after the Wakefield loan was issued, the defendants committed a shocking fraud. On July 15 Daniels ordered the firm of Blades, East and Blades, who had printed the Wakefield loan scrip certificate, to print a further 80 Wakefield certiflcates for £5,000 each, and deliver them to Dixon, not to Mr. Page, the chief clerk of the issue department of i the Corporation of General Securities, Limited, who had ordered the previous printing for the Wakefield loan. The defendants desired to conceal what they were doing from Mr. Page. Thus a certificate amounting to £400,000 was fabricated. "The defendants were hard-pressed for ready money. These four gentlemen, directors of an issuing house in the City of London, stooped so low as to issue worthless scrip. Mr. George P. Russell, one of the directors of Bussell and Company, was completely deceived. The printers, with

no reason for knowing that these supplementary issues were in any way spurious, accordingly printed and delivered them to Mr. Page, whom Dixon told they would be exchanged for the original scrip, which would be cancelled. ‘‘As the exchange was not made, Mr. Page asked Daniels if he realised that he had issued more scrip than the amount of the loans. Daniels said, ‘Technically we have. I am seeing to it.’ ” Mr. Roome continued that these spurious issues would be the subject of further charges. There were men being ruined owing to the action of these defendants, whose uttering of spurious securities had rendered them liable to 14 years’ penal servitude. The hearing was adjourned. BANKS BLAMED | The “Daily Telegraph” says it learns that plain speaking was heard at a meeting of bankers at which it is understood the governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Montagu C. Norman, laid the onus of the Hatry companies’ collapse upon banking and money circles. Mr. Norman is said to have intimated that the financial authorities would need to realise their responsibilities. He reminded the bankers of the well-known views held by many members of the Labour Government in regard to the nationalisation of banks.