POSED AS A DOCTOR.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 342, 25 January 1937, Page 8

POSED AS A DOCTOR.

PROPOSED MARRIAGE TO A DISPENSER. AMAZING ALLEGATIONS IN FRAUD CHARGE. Remarkable allegations: were made at Clerkenwell when an ex-convict, svho was stated to have posed as a doctor and proposed to a woman dispenser after offering her an Important position in the East, was sent back to prison for six months. Stated to have been released from Parkhurst last March, having been sentenced to live years’ penal servitude for bigamy, William Faulkner, 40, described as a carpenter, of Camden Town, N.W., was now charged with obtaining a cheque for £6 from Miss Elsie Martha Weaver, with Intent to defraud, and with attempted false pretences. Mr Morgan, prosecuting, related that when site answered an advertisement in a medical Journal, Miss Weaver iiad received a reply from Faulkner, who added the qualifications, M.R.C.P.S. He offered her a position as dispenser in Persia at £5 a week with a five year contract. Miss Weaver subsequently met Faulkner in the Strand, continued Mr Morgan, and he told her he was Dr. Faulkner and had been commissioned by the League of Nations to form a health service In the East. He stated he was studying tropical diseases. Faulkner declared certain people interested In the movement were meeting in Geneva, and he suggested Miss Weaver should join them there. Later he wrote to Miss Weaver:

“I am feeling rather a cad about about you. I will tell you why. For some time I have been trying to find a wife who had Interest in my work in the faast, and although we want a nurse-dispenser, I wanted primarily to meet a girl like yourself who was willing to risk taking a job like that. . .” Asked For £6. Faulkner had shown Miss Weaver photographs of Persia and Budapest, and wrote to her a letter in which lie stated he was arranging for accommodation at Budapest and asking, her for £6. This letter bore a printed heading: “The Russian De L'lranian Health (Services, Avenue Ala ed Dowleh, Teheran,” with the names of Sir Aldo Castellano as chief director, and W. C. Faulkner as chief medical officer. Believing Faulkner to be a doctor. Miss Weaver sent him a cheque for £6. When she received a wire from him the next day asking if the money had been sent, she consulted her bank manager and the cheque was stopped In case it had gone astray. Actually Faulkner had not received any money. Miss Weaver made further inquiries and when she saw Faulkner the next day he told her he was an agent to the Soviet Government. Faulkner, added Mr Morgan, had been convicted on eight previous occasions. In one case he practised aa a doctor and operated on the foot ol one of the women to whom he had proposed marriage. A passport belonging to a doctor was found in his possession. For the' defence, it was stated Faulkner was born in Canada and had served with the Canadians during the war. He had been a medical student in the Victoria University at Toronto. It was admitted Faulkner had told a tissue of lies, but urged that having regard to his previous convictions he was handicapped.