POSED AS A COUNT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 932, 27 March 1930, Page 14

POSED AS A COUNT

SWINDLED MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN AMAZING PLAUSIBILITY The remarkable career of a goodlooking young man with a rich bass voice who has swindled middle-aged women of thousands of pounds was told to Mr. Bingley, the Marylebone magistrate, last month. Henry Irving Eustis, otherwise Henry Anderson Conroy Irving Eustace, aged 23, of Staffordshire House, Walton-on-Thames, was charged with Euphemia Simon Sherriff, aged 45, a housekeeper, of Bridge Bungalow, Shepperton, Middlesex, with obtaining £47 by fraud. It was stated that Eustis went to an hotel in Cleveland Gardens, Bayswater, W., with Miss Sherriff, whom he represented as his aunt. They stayed for three weeks, and Eustis talked of a wealthy great uncle at Staines. His cheque for £3O was dishonoured and he was arrested. The second charge related to the hiring of a motor-car and for which he paid with a bogus cheque. Faked Bank Book Detective-Sergeant Duncan said that Eustis had a cleverly faked pass-book I showing that he had a credit balance of £95,442. Mr. Bingley: Pierpont Morgan isn’t in it with this. man. Mr. Lawrence Vine, defending the woman, said that, experienced though she was, she was completely deceived ay “this young rascal, who could charm a pear off a cherry tree.’* Miss Sherriff, giving evidence, said she met Eustis when she was the manageress of an hotel. He told her stones of an enormous amount of money coming to him from Ireland, and said he wanted her as his housew'ith him to Bournemouth, and paid all the expenses. She regarded him as a man of little imUons ate means ’ but great expectaBingley said her Portion was a roazing one. He would give her chtrge en hen ° f 0,8 d ° Ubt> aUd dis ' ctive-Sergeant Duncan said that Cornwall ’TT 111 , a , fl shing village in I Cornwall. After being employed as I we?t rC mo r ’lode° y ’ he left hom ’ e - and went into lodgings with a woman It £26 °w 116 St °n S jew cilery valued at £26. He was bound over for this offence, and became a waiter at sea- ? ld ® resorts in Devonshire. In 1925 he had a serious motor accident nd was treated at the Sidmouth Hospital Yhere he met three benevolent elderlv women well known in Devonshire for their charitable wni-t . lor plausibility elicited their ‘sympathy and one of them took him to he™ house’, and treated him as one of the familv A n t V “ onths he h ad obtained £lO 000 and r grT^oV h f C r „“ e Ver.° lhCr A Cornish Castle Then Re bought a motor business at So™n b l r ot^ 7 whte S Keflo£ Count^rßoulogne™” with an ancient castle in Cornwall He made such an impression on her w&’SSSS"- " el * Judgment was given apainct for £3,000 in the H?gh £oir?. fnd in his dilemma he turned to a Doncaster in London, leading her l believe that he was a man of high iTth’e T re t en , dinS that he had £B,OOO i thS -. bank > but only one cheque he hb!t e V er t 0 exchan se four^signed in ?or C £ e ( ;Too 5° a Ms ’ ° ne he ™ed , ;.r £6,000 and gave to a firm of solicitors to satisfy the High Court judgment and save his imprisonment and with another one for £844 he bought a motor-car. ne a’jaud he was sentenced at the Old Bailey m July, 1928, to months m the second division He v.as released from prison earlv in J Mr ar ß- an | d then met Mi ss Sherriff 1,, T r ;, bingley said that Eustis had swindled these wretched women right and left, and ought to be sent to penal -emtude, for he was a danger to the m (r Un \ ty -, An °fher court had tried the effect of a long term in the second division, and he would try a sentence of nine months’ hard labour, to see if it would bring Eustis to his sensei?