INTERNATIONAL THIEVES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 305, 17 May 1913, Page 9

INTERNATIONAL THIEVES

SOME NEW ZEALAND CONVICTIONS, i London, Mar.-h '>■"> when tlnee prisoners were ;onnd "uiltv and sen eneed-David Watson, ag^i 38 a private eiujuiry agent, to fou" years' Penal servitude; Samuel CoJ„„ and Barnard Barnett, 38, a dealer to mne months' hard labor. Col.-n issued to be well known to the New Zealand Watson, the police alleged while poss as »P"vate detective, was .eally inciting thefts of valuable article, from West End business establishments, afterwards reselling the stolen goods to the bims concerned, explaining that he had become acquainted with the theft in his capacity as private enquiry agent. In the particular case before the jury it was suggested that Watson was the reviver of a jade ornament stolen from Libert's Cohen the actual thief, and Barnett the runner. Watson, an educated man, with all the art of a practised speaker, made a remarkable speech from the dock in his own defence, emphasising his points with a wealth of gesture. Dealing with his previous admission that lie had lived with a countess, he asked: "Is there anything marvellous in that? I called myself an enquiry agent, and I don't set myself up as an emblem of moral reeitude. (Laughter). The necessary stock-in-trade of an enquiry agent is that lie should be a man who has seen something in the world, and has known something about it." b Watson appealed to the jury, "as sportsmen and Englishmen," to show their opinion of the mud-throwiu<r to which he had been subjected by counsel for the prosecution, described a detective's evidence as "more like a story Conan Doyle might have told," and declared that there was no more truth in the statement that lie had given a diamond skull to "Lady Gordon" than that it came from a burglary at Birmingham. A number of convictions against Watson and Cohen were proved. There were no convictions against Barnett. Cohen's offenoes were mostly committed in New Zealand and Australia. There was a conviction against him for the illicit disposal of opium in Texas. Watson had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment for obtaining whisky by fraud at Perth in 1013; three months' at Marylebone for wife maintenance, fifteen months' at the London Sessions for fraud, two years at Capetown for forgery, and twelve months at the Central Criminal Court for bigamy. Inspector Hawkins said'the police has suspected Barnett of receiving for many years, and he boasted that he- had disposed of opium in treacle casks. He 4»'as the associate of thieves, and, the son of a well-known curio eritic, he traded on his father's reputation. He collected money to get legal aid for the trial of the prisoner in the Eastbourne murder, and had stolen £3 or £3 10s of it. Watson was the son of an ex-Provost of Cupar. During the past twelve years he had lived by fraud, except when he was in'prison. He was a forger, thief, receiver, and blackmailer. When sentence- was passed Watson in dicated that he would appeal.