£30,000 IN FIVE VEARS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3466, 21 April 1920, Page 7

£30,000 IN FIVE VEARS.

MISS BRADY\’S B.—\NKRUP’I‘CY. Miss Mary 81.-acly, the Manchester girl who is serving a sentence of 12 months’ inlpl'isc~l_lment for defrauding her employers of large sums of money, was examined in the Bankruptcy Court at I\tlanchester recently_ on a statelnenl: of affaia-s discloisng gross liabilities of £313,000, ofnwhich £II,OOO was due to unsecured creditors, and assets amounting to £7OOO. Her career of extravagance began in -19105 and confinued until her arrest: a few months ago.

5 Her fzlthel- was in the Royal Irish. iCollst:lbulal'y, and, according to Miss ;Bra.dy’g evidence to-day, was Comfortiably off, although not Wealthy. In her 'early c:a'l'eel' in Manchester she was s2l typis-t, and clerk at a music hall,‘ ’S,he entered the office of a shipping firm five years ago, and eventually ibecmne [bookkeeper to the firm -at a {salary of £4 a week. Miss Brady ihex-self was responsible t'o1~':1 story athalt in 1911, when she became of age, ‘she iuheriled the income from £SOOO :under her grandmother's will and ‘that she received the capital sum in .1915. In that way she had explained. her ability to live at "the l\/lidland i Hotel’. .

l Miss Bradyfs original explanation of ‘the circumstances in which she belicanle bankrupt was that fronl the [time she went to the Midland Ho-tel fshe began to live ‘extravagantly, uspending a large amount of money on aclress, jewellery, and entertainments, land, in 12 months’ time, had practicfally €Xh:lllS,ted the £SOOO. She could .not bring herself to stop her extravfagances, and in order to meet; her° exEpenditure she took money from her employers. She admitted to-day that the gr:ln«lmother’s legacy was an invention. Her gra‘.ldlllothel' had left her estate to her son and two daughters, but as she was the eldest granddztughter she had been led to expect that £SOOO would come ‘to her. There was a family an-angenlent. that she should receive the proceeds of some shares when she was 2], or later‘;

She had received, from her brother-in-law, who was an Italian, the fot-ail‘ sum of £SOOO to enable her to start in business; He was not a creditor. The Official Receiver stated that thedebtor’s- employers put her def'alcations at £23,000. She now herself had stated them to be .£].0,000, and he asked if she now disputed the larger figure.' She replied -that she could n'bt'suy_ The figui-es‘l‘ook?=cl’ different set out on a paper than they did in the books.

In reply to other questions, Miss Brady said that she started in business, and calculated that she lost between £200() and £3OOO in six months. ' ‘

The Official Receiver: I suggest it was more than £IO,OOO. The Debtor: It could not possibly be so much. .

She added that shehad borrowed five separate sums of £IOOO each from a money-lender, but had repaid with interest more than she received. In three years she had spent £SOOO altcjgether, but in 1916 and 1917 she got through £7OOO The Oflicial Receiver: You have. had something like £30,000 in fhe last five _Vea.rs?——Yes

Regarding the debtor’s losses» 41¢ cards. she was asked if the total losses were not more than between £2OOO and £3OOO _ ’

-The Debtor: That is as high as I can possibly ‘place it

She addecl that she had always lost at cards. but she had won £145 at the races.