POSED AS DOCTOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 28

POSED AS DOCTOR

FOUR TRIPS AS SHIP'S SURGEON DUPED WOMEN An amazing story o£ a joiner who acted as locum tenens to a Glasgow doctor and made several voyages as a ship's surgeon was told at Liverpool Assizes recently. Hugh McKay Rankin, aged 4S, a joiner, of Walthamstow, E., pleaded guilty to obtaining £29 from Miss Gatrell, of Wavertree, by false pretences. Mr. Clothier, prosecuting, said that Rankin told Miss Gatrell he was a doctor, and showed her documents purporting to prove he had about £9,250. He proposed marriage, and took her to Chester, where he pretended that he had seen a solicitor and had settled £5,000 on her. Then he borrowed £29 from her. Taking Over Practice Miss Gatrell said that Rankin had chosen for her an engagement ring valued at £ 400. Inspector Thompson said Rankin was at one time a groom at Walthamstow, and then went to Canada, from where he -wrote that he was employed as a coachman by a man who was studying medicine. In 1915 he returned to this country, and negotiated with a doctor in East Ham to take over his practice. When asked by the Medical Insuranee Committee for his diplomas he failed to produce them. Between February, 1916, and July, 1917, he made four voyages as ship’s surgeon, and produced for inspection a diploma bearing the name William Rankin. His certificates of discharge from the ship were marked “Very good.’’ Cancer Cure Story Later a Glasgow doctor engaged him as locum tenens for a week. Rankin carried out the duties satisfactorily. In , 1917 he was convicted of falsely pretending to be a doctor, but in 1920 he made out that he had a certain cure for cancer, the like of which had not been known to medical science. He got in touch with men who advanced him money to help him in research, but he tvas exposed and sent to prison. He went to the United States, but in 1925 was sent back to Glasgow as a criminal deportee, having been several times convicted of fraud there. A year ago, at Wallasey, Cheshire, he posed a 3 a doctor and became engaged to two or three women. Rankin was sentenced to 21 months’ hard labour.