650 PER CENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1938, Page 6

650 PER CENT

INTEREST CHARGED BY WOMAN MONEYLENDER. CLIENTS AFRAID OF HER. Interest at the rate of 650 per cent was alleged to'have been charged by a woman moneylender who appeared in court at Liverpool. It was also declared that her women clients were so terrorised by her that they had been induced with difficulty to come to court to give evidence. Mrs Annie Williams, aged 47, of Kirkdale, pleaded guilty to having carried on the business of a moneylender without a licence. Mr D. J. Wilson, prosecuting, told the magistrate that Mrs Williams had been obtaining interest on an extortionate scale. One woman who borrowed £2 paid 5s a week interest as well as 5s a week off a previous debt. Six weeks later she still owed the original debt of £2 and the 25s she had borrowed previously. She had been paying interest at the rate of 650 per cent per annum. Another woman, on a 10s loan, paid Is a week interest for four months, and also interest on another loan. When she had paid a total of £5 her original debt had increased to 30s. Two other women had been similarly victimised, and in each case the interest worked out- at 650 per cent. When Mrs Williams was seen by Detective-Sergeant Price she admitted lending money to these women, but said the half-crowns they paid her were not interest but were just for a drink. She said she did not keep any books or papers because she was not a moneylender. Mr Wilson added that the woman had been carrying on this moneylending business for a considerable time. Police proceedings would have been taken earlier, but the borrowers had been in such fear of Mrs Williams that they had been frightened to report the matter to the police, who had had the greatest difficulty in inducing them to come to court. Mrs Williams declared she was not a moneylender. She stated that she borrowed money to assist these women to get out of the hands of their landlord or to redeem their husbands’ clothes from pawn. She denied she had charged interest on the scale allaged, although she admitted she received 2s occasionaly from the women. The magistrate stated that the witnesses had done a real public service in reporting this very bad case to the authorities. In fining Mrs Williams £25 he told her that if she repeated the offence she would be liable to imprisonment.