MAID’S POSE AS HEIRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 10

MAID’S POSE AS HEIRESS

MYTHICAL HUSBAND AND PHANTOM WEALTH ORDERED WEDDING FEAST A good-looking servant girl, who posed as an heiress with artistocratic relations, appeared at Huddersfield Police Court recently. Dorothy Mary Wilson, aged 22, the daughter of a Wakefield miner, pleaded guilty to several charges of false pretences. She had been employed at a local maternity home, and became acquainted with Mrs. Lewis Ramsden, one of the visitors, with whom she later lodged. She told Mrs. Ramsden that she had come into £1,200, and was -waiting for the return of her husband, who had left her, so she declared, at the church door on the marriage morning to rush to his dying mother’s bedside. The postponed wedding festivities were to be on a grand scale, and Wilson invited a number of people living in the Taylor Hill Road district. The girl offered to take her guests to her bridal home at Clitheroe in her £9OO de luxe motor-car. She claimed to be related to Sir Amos Nelson, of Marton Hall, near Skipfon, and offered Mrs. Ramsden’s husband, who is an engineer, a job as steward on the estate at a salary of .10 a week. “Mrs. Nelson” When arrested she hadn't a penny on her, and owed money to Mrs. Ramsden and to Mrs. Marion Jessop, a shopkeeper in Taylor Hill Road, where she had stayed in the name of "Mrs. Nelson.” She. ordered a lot of confectionery from Mrs. Jessop and silk underclothing, which she never paid for, and before she was exposed told Mrs. Jessop that she wanted a four-tier wedding cake made for the celebrations when Robin, her husband returned. She also offered Mr. Jessop, an unemployed mill worker, a lodgekeeper’s post at Marton Hall. It was when Wilson rang up the police from a local telephone box and pretended to be speaking from Skipton that suspicions were aroused when she asked for an officer to be sent round to Mrs. Ramsden’s with the message that “Mrs. Nelson” would not be home until midnight. Detective-Sergeant Kendall made inquiries, and was at first mistaken by neighbours for the girl’s mythical husband. When questioned at the police station Wilson broke down, and said her stories about a fortune, a wealthy husband and relationship with a knight were all lies. “I told one lie,” she said, “and then had to tell two to get out of it.” Accused’s brother, who was in court, promised to look after her until she obtained work, and on this understanding the magistrates bound , the girl over for 12 months.