DECEIVED BLINDED HERO.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 18 December 1916, Page 4

DECEIVED BLINDED HERO.

.NINE MONTH'S SENTENCE FOB. HEARTLESS FRAUD. A sentence of three months' imprisonment on each of three charges oi false pretences—nine mouths in allwas passed at Widness upon William Theodore Thompson (alias E. D. Scott), who was also committed for trial on a charge of bigamy. It appears that he had obtained grants from the loea] branch of the Soldiers' and Sailors' So ciety, £37 10s worth of furniture and various sums of money from individ uals, including a blind soldier named Ivarr fjC

In May last according- to the evi dence, prisoner went to Widness and masqueraded as a sergeant of the Connaught Rangers, and the hero of a verj gallant fight at the front, in-which he

held a trench for fourteen hour. 5 against a party of Germans. He statec that in this crimmage he was wounded and that his left arm had been shat tered. On his breast he wore the rib bon of the D.C.M., and said.that he ha< been personally decorated by His Maj esty the King. He also sported the rib bon of the French Military Medal During his rumination in Widness h> always had his arm tucked away insid his coat with the sleeve fastened to th pocket. He received sympathy am money from many on the strength o these statements

Prisoner was a native of Warrington and moved to YVidncs when :i boy. H< left the town when eighteen years o age, and joined the Navy. In 1910 hi married, the young iady living in Dit ton. Widnes, and allowed her 12s pe week for some time. Then the payment ceased in the November of that year when he deserted at Devonport. Pai of his uniform was found on the quay and everyone thought he had beei drowned, but he turned up later il Liverpool, and went into lodgiwgs i] Godlsmith Street, where h e worked a' a baker.

He made the acquaintance of a womai named Brady, and after twelve months courtship he maried her. Afterward he became an insurance agent Some thing went wrong with that, and he re moved to London. There were tvr children of the marriage. He was em ployed as a baker when the war brok out. when he enlisted in the A.S.C. a Scotland Yard. He had deserted th Army three times, and instead of beim Sergeant 1060 Thompson, he was Prj vate 1060 Scott of the A.S.C. Pr soner had enlisted in the London Ban gers and the Royal Welsh Fusileers.

It was stated that he was also wante< at Scotland Yard for stealing jeweller j Thompson, in a written statement pleaded guilty and said that his down falj was due to drink. The bigamous marriage is alleged t have been contracted at Liverpool whil Thompson's wife was still alive a Widnes.