FRAUDS ADMITTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1943, Page 4

FRAUDS ADMITTED

WOMAN COMMITTED FOR SENTENCE SUBSTANTIAL SUMS OF MONEY OBTAINED. PROCEEDINGS IN BLENHEIM. . (By Telegraph—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, This Day. Ethel Eleanor Ray, of Christchurch, a married woman, aged 38, with six children, pleaded guilty in the Magis■trate’s Court to four charges of false pretences involving a sum of £450. She was committed to Wellington for sentence and was also remanded to appear in Greymouth on a further charge of obtaining £l5O by fraud. Although she is alleged to have obtained a total of £6OO by a series of remarkably bold frauds during the past few months, it was stated that the accused woman had only a few shillings left when she was arrested. Among her victims was an elderly pensioner, who contributed £2OO by way of “loan” and thus lost the bulk of her life’s savings. Mrs Ray conducted her operations in Pelorus Sound where she obtained three sums of £lOO and one of £l5O from settlers by representing that she had money in the bank and was purchasing a guest house for £4.000.

Accused in a statement, said she had arranged with a taxi-driver to send her a telegram to the Sounds boarding house where she was staying advising that shares valued at £3,309 had been sold and the money placed to her account. This telegram figured prominently in the subsequent representatives by which she obtained money.