FURNISHING A HOME.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 April 1922, Page 12

FURNISHING A HOME.

STRANGE STORY IN COURT. ALLEGED FALSE PRETENCES. MAGISTRATE DISMISSES THE INFORMATION. A strange story was related (says Wednesday’s Post) in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when a young man named Henry John Mercer, alias H. J. Willoughby, appeared to answer a charge of attempting to obtain furniture from the firm of F. Yeates, Cuba Street, to the value of £364 18s, by falsely representing that he had a seven years’ contract with the Vacuum Oil Company, and that he was a married man. Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., was on the bench. Chief Detective Kemp appeared for the police, and the accused was represented by Mr. J. F. B. Stevenson. Harley Griffiths, an accountant in the Vacuum Oil Company, said that no contract existed between his company and the accused. PURCHASING A HOUSE. Verna L. Kerr, employed by the firm of H. G. Rutter and Co., land agents, Wellington, said that on the 2nd of this month the accused called at his office, and gave the name of Willoughby. The accused said he had a contract with the Vacuum Oil Company for the carting of benzine to Palmerston North. He wanted to rent some office, and witness showed him Mrs. Cameron’s late beauty parlor. Mercer also expressed a desire to buy a house, and he later returned with a young lady, who he said was his wife. Witness took the accused and his “wife” to a . house in Ross Street, Lyall Bay, and this satisfied the accused, who signed a contract to purchase the house. One of the conditions of the contract was that the occupants were to give up possession of the house as soon as possible. A deposit of £5O was to be paid at 10 o’clock on March 3, and Mercer duly arrived and asked for a copy of the contract, which he wanted to show to Mr. Perry. That was the last witness saw r of Mercer. To Mr. Stevenson: Witness would not give possession of the house until the accused had paid a deposit. “WOULD SPEND £400.” Stanley Forrester, an assistant employed by F. Yeates, furniture manufacturer, Cuba Street, said that on Friday, March 3, accused visited the shop accompanied by two ladies, one of whom witness tok to be Mercer’s intended wife. Mercer bought several articles of furniture to the value of about £3OO. Before the business had been completed another man joined the accused. Mercer said that he wished to furnish a house he had just bought, and would spend £4OO. He said he was just over from America, and had a seven years’ contract with the Vacuum Oil Company. Mercer also told witness that his father was manager of the company in America. Witness asked for a deposit, and made an arrangement to meet Mercer at the house at Lyall Bay. Witness went out to the house, but Mercer did not put in an appearance. However, witness measured up the house with the permission of the occupants, and then went back to the shop, only to find that the accused had called in his absence. At 8.30 that night Mercer called again, and said that he would call again at 9.30 o’clock the next morning. He failed to put in an appearance. While witness w T as at the house in Ross Street the occupants appeared to be packing up, and w'ere “on pins and needles.” To Mr. Stevenson: Mercer did not actually receive one penny’s worth of furniture. He had stated that the transaction was to be on a purely cash basis.

AFTER THE HONEYMOON. Frederick William Newman, carpenter and joiner, said that on the morning of March 3, he met the accused, being introduced by a young lady whose name he thought to be Miss Campbell. Mercer asked witness to come and see the furniture he was buying, and also offered him a job at £6 per week. This was aceepte by witness, who went with the accused to a house in Moxham-avenue and shifted the furniture from Yeat’s into the house, which was to be ready for Mercer on his return from his honeymoon in Auckland. Mercer also mentioned the benzine contract to witness, who was to fix up the lorries and “see to the benzine.” To Mr. Stevenson: Witness had not been defrauded of any money by the accused. CONCERNING AN ENGAGEMENT RING. Violet Campbell said she had known the accused about six weeks under the name of Harold Willoughby. She understod the accused to be a lieutenant on a boat. Subsequently she became engaged to Mercer, and on March 2 last she visited the house in Rossstreet. The house suited witness very well, and the accused signed some papers, apparently purchasing the place. Witness also detailed a visit to the Moxham-avenue house, which the accused preferred, and decided to purchase. Later Mercer took the witness to a jeweller's shop and selected an engagement ring, the price of which was, £4O. Mercer also gave witness a “draft" on the National Bank for £5O, with which to purchase a trousseau. Mercer had also selected an Essex 1 car at the lx>minion Motor Vehicles, and he told witness that he was paying cash for it.

ENGAGING SOME FIREMEN. Constable E. Tongue, attached to the Detective Office, said he located the accused on March 4, in the furniture department of C. Smith's Ltd., Cubastreet, where he was inspecting some carpets. To Mr. Stevenson: On March 8 last, during his remand, the accused paid a visit to the Star Agency, .and said he came direct from the Union Co. He had stated he had instructions to engage some firemen and stewards, and took the men down to a boat. Actually the men were not needed at all. Mr. Stevenson: “Apparently a practical joke?” —“I suppose so.” “A CINEMATOGRAPH COMEDY.” On behalf of the accused, Mr. Stev r enson submitted that there was no ease to answer, as there had been no intent on the part of the accused to defraud anybody. Counsel described the case as more in the nature of a “cinematograph comedy.” Since an j accident some two years ago, the .aceused had developed the rather pe.uiii liar desire to order things. Coun-el submitted that Mercer had carried on ' in the way he had with the object of

impressing the girl to whom he became engaged. Fashionable women wore in the habit of visiting shops and asking assistants to put fur coats and other articles aside, when they had no intention of buying them. Mr. Riddell, S.M., said that the case was one of considerable difficulty. There was not a great deal of evidence to show that the defendant has been guilty of any criminal offence. The Magistrate said that when the whole of the evidence was tendered he did not think a jury would convict, and he proposed to dismiss the charge. He would make the ’ suggestion, however, that Mercer should be medically examined, to see if he was responsible far his actions.